Land & Water

Fog, tides, trash, and the ground underfoot.

Land & Water

San Francisco vowed zero landfill trash by 2020 and sent 515,037 tons there in 2025

In 2003, when the city set its deadline, 718,863 tons of its trash went to landfills; in 2019, 713,010. The state’s count has sat near 500,000 since mid-2019, when it changed how it counts. The city’s own gauge barely moved.

Oct 9, 2026

Housing

59% of homes in San Francisco’s new buildings sit on ground that can give way in a quake

The state maps the 700 block of Valencia Street, where a hotel sank in 1906, as ground that can liquefy, or weaken and give way, in a strong earthquake. Of 48,718 homes in new buildings the city has permitted since 2001 and finished, 28,780 stand on ground mapped the same way. That ground covers about a fifth of the city.

Oct 5, 2026

Land & Water

San Francisco Bay Topped NOAA’s Flood Line on 6 Days in 2026, Twice in Summer

From 1920 through 1968, NOAA’s tide gauge in the Presidio never once counted a flood day, and every one it counted after that fell between November and February. This year it has counted six, two of them on summer nights. The Bay sits about nine inches higher than it did a century ago.

Sep 28, 2026

Land & Water

Is the fog thinning? The question keeps being put to the one window that barely sees it

Thirty-one years of San Francisco visibility, and a coastal check the desk owed since July, turn up no measurable decline in Karl — only a bay-side airport that meets him a few dozen winter hours a year, and a coast that has never once stopped being socked in.

Aug 1, 2026

Land & Water

San Francisco vowed zero landfill trash by 2020 and sent 515,037 tons there in 2025

59% of homes in San Francisco’s new buildings sit on ground that can give way in a quake

San Francisco Bay Topped NOAA’s Flood Line on 6 Days in 2026, Twice in Summer

Is the fog thinning? The question keeps being put to the one window that barely sees it

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