Clean Water Program

Mercury, to put it plainly, is bad stuff. In people, it causes exhaustion, headaches, memory loss, even brain damage; in birds it appears to have similar nervous system impacts and can harm their eggs; in the environment, there’s almost no way to get rid of it. Mercury in the San Francisco Bay is especially sinister: It’s not just a silent, toxic reminder of past environmental sins, but may actually be thwarting our attempts to atone for them... more >

Another example of a web dashboard built using R comes from John Oram, a scientist at the San Francisco Estuary Institute. SFEI collects and monitors environmental data from the waters and wetlands of the Bay Area. By sampling the waters, sediments and fish of the San Francisco Bay and testing for toxins, pollutants and other hazards, they monitor the health of the environment for Bay Area residents.

"I can certainly imagine the day when your local surf-safety bulletin or fishing recommendations come from a tool like John's." —David Smith, Revolutions Computing

The State Water Resources Control Board has released a new big report showing results of tests on wild fish all over California. For the first time, the nonprofit science center, the San Francisco Estuary Institute in Oakland, has prepared the fish report for the board by researching past contamination studies from lakes and bays over the past 25 years. Anglers can find maps and historical narratives in the 150-page report that can help them figure out the degree of contamination in their favorite fishing spots.

In collaboration with the San Francisco Estuary Institute, UC Davis researchers have made headway in understanding the sources of toxic mercury in the San Francisco Bay and Delta. The findings, revealed in SFEI's annual report of the Regional Monitoring Program for Water Quality (RMP), indicate that changes in current habitat management techniques could prevent mercury from entering the food web and threatening the health of wildlife and humans. A small fraction of elemental mercury is converted to the organic form methylmercury by bacteria in the sediments of aquatic environments.

Andy Cohen was interviewed by KQED Quest.