"Aging Pipes Force Sewage Into San Francisco Bay"

"Joan Petrosh and her friends were tossing fishing lines into the bay last week, hoping for bites from the striped bass and stingrays they usually catch.

The setting? On the Richmond-area shoreline - in front of one of the main outflow points for partially treated sewage in the Bay Area.

'There's no way we would eat anything we catch,' Petrosh said, watching one of the lines buck with what looked like a bite. 'Just think of the bay - it's too contaminated. We just catch 'em for fun and throw 'em right back.'

Little did she know how contaminated the water really was.

During the storms that howled through the Bay Area a couple of weeks back, a total of 630,000 gallons of raw sewage spewed into the bay at 47 spots, according to environmental watchdog group San Francisco Baykeeper."

Kevin Fagan reports for the San Francisco Chronicle January 31, 2010.