Over time, I discovered that the Black Rocks in my yard were the tip of the iceberg.  Hazardous chemicals from MGPs are found in many forms.  Contamination is widespread in the neighborhood and extends out into San Francisco Bay.  While there is video of contamination bubbling to the surface in Gashouse Cove, many people don’t know it exists.  They don’t realize how contamination threatens people and the environment.  If they think about it all they assume someone else, the government perhaps, will take care of it.  Sadly, that is unrealistic.  A building near our home was remediated in the 1990s to protect gardeners but the demand from regulators to look for contamination throughout the neighborhood was ignored for decades.  PG&E is very powerful.  It effectively controls one regulator, the condition is known as regulatory capture, and another regulator tries but is too weak to change anything.  These agencies have known about the contamination for a very long time but have done so little about it that no one even knows where it all is.  In Fisherman’s Wharf, contamination associated with a lesser known MGP remains a complete mystery in spite of the fact that the other three MGPs in the area have confirmed contamination on land and in the Bay.  Facts like these caused me to act. 

In September 2014, along with a small group of fishermen, the San Francisco Herring Association (SFHA), I filed a lawsuit in federal court over MGP contamination in the Marina and Fisherman’s Wharf.  The 2014 Lawsuit alleged violations of the Clean Water Act, the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, and associated California laws.  The first result of the 2014 lawsuit was that PG&E, SFHA, and myself entered into an agreement to determine, under court oversight, the nature and extent of MGP contamination in the Marina and Fisherman’s Wharf, the Mediated Investigation Agreement.  It failed spectacularly because PG&E realized that it’s not in its best interest to know the details of its liability.  Other results of the 2014 lawsuit are that in 2016 PG&E acquired our home and signed a 2018 Consent Decree with the SFHA addressing the offshore area.  I refused to enter into the 2018 Consent Decree because I do not believe it adequately protects the marine environment.  The fourth and final result of the 2014 lawsuit was a 2021 Consent Decree which aims to protect the Marina terrestrial area in several ways but will not solve all of the problems.   

In July 2020, I filed a second lawsuit concerning the lesser known Fisherman’s Wharf MGP located at the old cannery site near the historic ships pier.  The cannery MGP had tested positive for contamination 35 years ago but has not been investigated since.  The 2021 Lawsuit is progressing through the court at this writing.