An impaired bay, an unchecked upstream, and a permitting gap that shows
August 13, 2026
Lower and South San Francisco Bay, the receiving waters for everything that drains off Bay Terraces and the lower Santa Clara Valley, are now officially listed as impaired under the Clean Water Act. Each bay segment carries a total maximum daily load determination from the latest assessment cycle, the regulatory tool used when a waterbody can no longer absorb the pollutant load reaching it without exceeding water quality standards. Laurel Creek, in San Mateo County, carries the same designation.The verdict isn't uniform across the watershed. San Francisquito Creek and Marina Lagoon are currently meeting their designated uses, and Matadero Creek simply lacks enough monitoring data to say either way. The impairment finding is specific to these bay segments and to Laurel Creek, not a blanket statement about every waterway feeding this stretch of coast.What stands out is less the impairment itself than what sits upstream of it. Within the immediate area, 35 facilities hold active Clean Water Act discharge permits. Seven are currently in violation, eight more had violations within the past year, and yet only four of the 35 have ever been inspected. No penalties have been assessed on any of them locally. Widen the lens to the broader watershed and the picture inverts: nine facilities there carry a documented history of significant violations, with more than $7 million in penalties assessed over time, though none of them are currently in serious non-compliance.Taken together, this reads less like an active spill and more like a long-standing gap between the paperwork of permitting and the follow-through of actually checking it. No single facility here has been tied to a specific pollutant load reaching the bay, and none of this pins the impairment on any one source. But a bay already on the impaired list, with a total maximum daily load in place and little assimilative capacity left, has correspondingly little room to absorb inattention upstream. The gap between permits issued and permits inspected is exactly the kind of quiet condition that tends to go unnoticed until a wet winter or a failing outfall turns it into something more visible.
Banana slugs emerge in the redwood understory
June 6, 2026
The air beneath the coast redwoods holds its moisture even as summer settles over the Peninsula. Here in the dappled light of Edgewood Park's redwood groves, where fog drifts between the ancient trunks and the forest floor stays soft underfoot, California banana slugs emerge from their dry-season retreat. These yellow-green mollusks, some as long as your hand, begin their slow traverse across fallen logs and through the ferns that carpet the understory.The California banana slug moves through this threatened ecosystem at its own deliberate pace, following chemical trails invisible to us but rich with information. Its muscular foot secretes mucus that both lubricates its path and carries scent molecules from other slugs that have passed this way. The slug's four retractable tentacles sample the air constantly. The upper pair detects light and movement; the lower pair tastes the chemical signatures of food, mates, and territory. What appears to be wandering is actually navigation through a landscape of scent.These slugs serve as decomposers in the redwood ecosystem, breaking down fallen leaves, bark, and the fruiting bodies of fungi that grow on decaying wood. Their rasping tongue, covered in thousands of tiny teeth, scrapes away layers of organic matter that would otherwise accumulate on the forest floor. As they feed, they distribute fungal spores throughout the grove, carrying them on their bodies and depositing them in their waste. This dispersal connects the root networks of the towering redwoods to the mycorrhizal fungi they depend on for nutrient uptake. The banana slug's slow movement actually accelerates the forest's ability to recycle nutrients and maintain the soil chemistry that supports these ancient trees. During breeding season, which peaks now in early summer, the slugs also engage in elaborate courtship rituals that can last for hours. They are hermaphrodites, each individual carrying both male and female reproductive organs, and their mating involves careful positioning and mutual fertilization. After mating, they deposit clusters of translucent eggs in moist soil beneath logs or in the shelter of fern fronds, where the eggs will develop through the remaining warm months.If you find yourself walking quietly through redwood groves anywhere along the coast, pause and scan the ground near fallen logs. The banana slug's yellow coloration, bright against the brown duff, evolved as a warning to potential predators about the toxic compounds in its skin. Watch how it extends and retracts its tentacles, testing the air around a piece of bark or a mushroom before committing to feed. Notice how its trail glistens briefly in whatever light filters down through the canopy above you.
Hummingbird trumpet opens to summer visitors
May 22, 2026
The air carries the scent of warming earth and new growth across the Stanford foothills. Cliff swallows call from their mud nests tucked under the eaves, their voices weaving through the morning as toyon flowers open white and clustered in the understory. This is the season when the landscape shifts from spring's tentative emergence into summer's full engagement, and nowhere is this more visible than in the bright orange trumpets now appearing along the hillsides.Hummingbird trumpet stands knee-high among the grasses, its narrow leaves silver-green and soft to the touch. The flowers emerge in terminal clusters, each bloom a perfect tube of coral-orange that flares into four petals at the mouth. These are not the delicate pastels of spring wildflowers but something bolder, built for the intensity of California summer. The plant has been growing steadily since early spring, sending up new shoots from its perennial base, and now it enters its most critical season. Each flower opens for just a few days, but the plant will continue blooming through late summer, creating a months-long window of opportunity.The orange trumpets are designed for hummingbirds, and Anna's hummingbirds do visit them regularly, their bills fitting perfectly into the narrow tubes to reach the nectar at the base. But watch closely and you will see other visitors working the flowers with equal dedication. Native sweat bees, small and metallic green, land on the flower faces and push their way inside, emerging dusted with pollen. Carpenter bees, large and purposeful, grip the petals with their legs while they probe for nectar. The invasive European woolcarder bee, now established in these hills, also works the flowers, though it often cuts through the base of the tube rather than entering through the mouth, stealing nectar without providing pollination services in return. The plant tolerates this theft. It produces enough flowers and enough nectar to sustain both legitimate pollinators and opportunistic thieves.As each flower finishes blooming, the ovary begins to swell into a long, narrow capsule that will split into four sections when ripe, releasing seeds topped with silky white hairs that catch the wind. This dual strategy, nectar for immediate pollinator relationships and wind-dispersed seeds for long-term spread, has allowed hummingbird trumpet to establish itself across diverse habitats from coastal bluffs to inland valleys. The plant gives generously to its pollinators now, in these warm weeks when insect activity peaks and nesting birds need reliable food sources. The bees carry its pollen to other plants scattered across the hillside, ensuring genetic diversity and successful seed set.
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