Fire retardant discovered in wastewater plants that discharge into the Bay

It is a hot Indian summer afternoon on Jasper Ridge, site of a 1,400-acre biological preserve on the San Francisco Peninsula managed by Stanford University. Not even the slightest breeze stirs the foliage of the live oaks and madrones, and the pungent aroma of tarweed—a late summer forb of California savannas—is heavy in the air. Stuart Weiss, chief scientist for Menlo Park's Creekside Center for Earth Observation, walks slowly along a trail, taking ground temperature readings with his thermo-gun—a pistol-like device that precisely measures surface temperature.

"The chemicals are used in such huge volumes, we need to know what's in our furniture and the implication of those chemicals we're exposed to on a daily basis."—Susan Klosterhaus, SFEI