City and County of SF v. US EPA (9th Cir. - July 31, 2023)

Here's what I learned from today's Ninth Circuit opinion:

In many cities (including San Francisco), your toilet is connected to the storm drain system. As a result, all the wastewater (including rainfall) gets treated before it's discharged.

Which works well. Until it rains a lot.

Then, the system is overwhelmed. At that point, the wastewater treatment system does what it can, but is forced to dump untreated wastewater directly into the ocean. With a reminder that this water includes material that comes directly from your toilet.

Needless to say, that's not so great for water quality.

But the EPA generally requires at least one thing in these systems. You gotta remove "floatables" from the wastewater before you dump it in the ocean.

You heard me. Floatables. Which is exactly what it sounds like.

Listen, I don't know about you, but if there's one thing that I most definitely do not want to see in the ocean while I'm surfing, it's "floatables" from someone's toilet.

That sounds like pretty much the irreducible minimum for water quality to me.