Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at for further information. For NPR News, I'm Lesley McClurg in San Francisco.Ĭopyright © 2022 NPR. But Choksi-Chugh fears the ecological effects from this summer's red tide may haunt the region for years to come. MCCLURG: In recent days, the chocolaty water has begun returning to its shimmery blue. And so we don't even know the magnitude of the problem of the fish kills, how many fish died. MCCLURG: Choksi-Chugh says human waste from 8 million Bay Area residents feeding the algae is why sharks, bat rays and huge sturgeon are washing up on beaches across the region.ĬHOKSI-CHUGH: And that was just sort of a tip of the iceberg - the level of fish, because most of the fish that died sunk to the bottom of the bay. San Francisco has some of the worst water recycling programs of anywhere in California.
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MCCLURG: These plants remove solids and bacteria from sewage, but utilities do not clean nutrients out of wastewater before discharging it.ĬHOKSI-CHUGH: What we really need to be doing is investing in our infrastructure so that we can upgrade those plants. We have 40 wastewater treatment plants around the bay. MCCLURG: Sejal Choksi-Chugh is the executive director for the environmental group San Francisco Baykeeper.ĬHOKSI-CHUGH: And there really is only one main lover. SEJAL CHOKSI-CHUGH: It's kind of a wake-up call to try to control the level of nutrients in the bay. Scientists have long warned the bay is primed for a disastrous red tide. MCCLURG: White says the unusual conditions are likely a combination of warmer water temperatures driven by climate change and high nutrient levels in the water, specifically nitrogen and phosphorus, which algae love to eat. We're trying to understand the cause of it. But this one has lasted longer and is more widespread than ever before. She says algal blooms are not uncommon in the bay, especially during the summer around marinas and along shorelines. MCCLURG: Eileen White is the executive officer for the San Francisco Bay Regional Water Board.
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Signs around the lake warn visitors to avoid playing or swimming in the water.ĮILEEN WHITE: Generally, this algae bloom is not toxic to humans, but it could cause skin irritation, eye irritation for people. MCCLURG: Officials estimate as many as 10,000 fish died in Lake Merritt in recent weeks. LAURIE BAGLEY: I just started sobbing when I realized the enormity of it, that they're literally dying, like, at our feet. Laurie Bagley, a local volunteer, has watched the situation worsen by the day. MCCLURG: The algal bloom known as red tide causes fish to suffocate, and toxins in the algae can destroy fish gills. You can tell they're really on the surface because the dissolved oxygen in the lake is so low. They're close to the shore, but they're kind of gasping for air. KOBI HUTCHINSON: There are a few fish that are left. He has worked at the boathouse for the past five years. Open mussel shells are strewn all along the shore. MCCLURG: The sandy beach below her feet is a web of twisted, tiny corpses. SABRINA WICKER: I thought it was, like, leaves or something, but it's, like, all those are all fish of all different sizes, floating, dead. Sabrina Wicker plugs her nose and shakes her head.
A group of people stare wide eyed from the shore there. MCCLURG: An estuary connects the bay to Lake Merritt, a few miles inland in Oakland. It breaks your heart to see harbor seals peeking their heads out of dense, murky water. MCCLURG: For more than a decade, Spicer has kayaked several times a week on the San Francisco Bay. MARY SPICER: And then the brown color got like a denser, thicker, chocolaty brown. LESLEY MCCLURG, BYLINE: About a month ago, Mary Spicer says the color of the water started to turn red and then brown. Lesley McClurg from member station KQED reports that a red tide has hit the region. Thousands of dead fish are covering beaches in the Bay Area from San Francisco to San Jose.
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