Environment | The Ferris Files

Office Space

I have two jobs now, as a personal trainer and as an editor at Sierra magazine, the publication of the not-for-profit Sierra Club. All morning I roam around Marin, meeting Bob for a run or coaching Cathy through a set of pushups. In the afternoon I head to San Francisco to an office on Second […]

The Wastewater Chronicles, Part IV

San Francisco’s wastewater treatment plant sits directly opposite the city’s most popular surf break, but the doctored water doesn’t end up there. Nowhere close, in fact. The effluent is discharged from a pipe four miles offshore and 90 feet down – in other words, a fish’s problem, but not yours, unless of course you […]

The Wastewater Chronicles, Part III

What does it smell like in a wastewater treatment plant? Not as bad as you might think. A powerful chemical-detergent smell pervades, masking something the nose can’t quite identify.

These “climber screens” are the first line of defense, where things like rags and sticks are taken out.

Once […]

The Wastewater Chronicles, Part II

As news emerges of sewage emerging into San Pablo Bay, it is only highlights how little we Bay Area watermen and -women know about the waste that might reside in our water. That was the question that motivated my recent visit to San Francisco’s wastewater treatment plant, 11 miles south of the spill and opposite […]

The Wastewater Chronicles, Part I

A few weeks ago I braced my sniffer and joined a tour of San Francisco’s wastewater treatment plant. No, I’m not mentally ill. The Wastewater Enterprise Oceanside Plant sits directly opposite the break at Ocean Beach where I occasionally surf, and I wanted to know exactly what I’m swimming in.

Oceanside Wastewater Treatment […]

My New Green Life

Two of my biggest passions, writing and the environment, have just come together into a new job. For the next few months, I’ll be the editor of “The Green Life” section of Sierra magazine.

As a writer it’s a unique opportunity to be the editor for while, see what life is like on the other […]

The Atom’s Apple

On Saturday I went on a tour of the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, just miles from where I grew up. At SLAC they’re in the business of making atoms move really, really fast, and then smashing them together, and poking through the wreckage to see what’s inside.

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Slimed by the Goo Goblin

I was in the parking lot this morning at Linda Mar, waxing my board and eager for my first surf session in more than a week, when a cop in a black dune buggy drove up and yelled, “Beach’s closed!”

Last week’s oil spill in San Francisco Bay had finally reached my bread-and-butter break. Dead, […]

Trashing the Ocean

image source: www.hopeforgaia.com

At least one morning every week I run around Strawberry Point in Mill Valley, but on Monday the view of the San Francisco skyline across the Bay was marred by a spread of McDonald’s trash on the ground next to a garbage can. It was being dined on by an […]

New story in Sierra magazine

Today Sierra magazine published a story I wrote about those bizarre ice pinnacles I saw on Mt. Aconcagua earlier this year. The penitentes are a fascinating phenomenon, and even better, they may play a role in saving the glaciers of the Southern Andes. Have a look…

http://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/200711/goodgoing.asp

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The Ferris Files