‘Forever Chemicals’ Threaten Community of Bay Fishers

Mackentral “Mack” Williams crossed the dock at Mission Rock and tossed a handful of breadcrumbs into the water ahead of Natalie Wu’s next cast. Wu, wielding a circular net, hoped to trap bait fish in the San Francisco Bay water below, but her first casts had come up empty. Most of the seven people on the pier, including Williams, had fished in the bay their whole lives. They didn’t hang out beyond fishing together, but the atmosphere that morning was easy and quiet, like a family at home. The fishers often helped each other and Williams’ gesture with the breadcrumbs was typical of the community, Wu said. 

The morning sunlight was bright and the sky clear and the anglers sat patiently by their poles. The bay lapped gently at the pier below. Steps away, a sign tacked to the dock recommended limiting consumption of various fish and shellfish species to avoid built-up toxins. 

It’s long been risky to eat fish from San Francisco Bay because pollutants like mercury build up in their bodies, and new research shows they are also contaminated with harmful “forever chemicals,” including one never before detected in marine fish. High levels of these chemicals are found in 10 species of fish frequently caught in San Francisco Bay, according to a study that the San Francisco Estuary Institute published in May. The newly detected contamination threatens anglers’ health and what many of them consider a way of life.

‘Forever and everywhere’ 

Perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, are colloquially called “forever chemicals” because they are notoriously difficult to eliminate or break down. Manufacturers have used them in a wide variety of consumer goods including fire-fighting foams, non-stick pans and waterproof fabrics, though recent changes in federal and state regulation have reduced their use. PFAS can cause cancers, thyroid and hormone disruption, and developmental delays, and can weaken the immune system, said study author Rebecca Sutton. The institute’s scientists tested fish samples collected from the bay between 2009 and 2019 and found 20 types of forever chemicals, including the one previously undetected.  

“They’re forever and everywhere,” said Anthony Khalil, a lifelong San Francisco Bay fisherman and the senior community engagement specialist at the San Francisco Estuary Institute. 

California has not issued fishing advisories that account for PFAS contamination, but based on Massachusetts’ guidance, the strictest in the country, the levels of PFAS found in fish in San Francisco Bay make them unsafe to eat daily and, in hot spots on the southern end of the bay, even weekly. 

For now, the state agency responsible for issuing advisories recommended that fishers follow existing advisories for other pollutants and eat smaller, younger fish to minimize exposure. 

PFAS exposure is tricky to detect because it can manifest as a wide array of symptoms. But pinpointing the cause of symptoms is vital to identifying a pollution source and reducing exposure. 

Residents of marginalized neighborhoods already overburdened with other types of pollution will likely have the toughest time detecting PFAS exposure, lead study author Miguel Méndez said. That’s because its nonspecific symptoms can blend with those from other kinds of toxic exposure, so in areas saturated with many kinds of pollution, symptoms will likely be harder to attribute to a specific source, Méndez said. 

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One forever chemical the researchers found had never been detected before in marine fish. For study author Sutton, the finding underlined the need for more extensive testing. 

“We’re seeing it now because we’re looking for it now,” Sutton said. “We’ve got to test more broadly. That means more samples, more sites and more chemicals.” 

There’s also a need for more data on the impacts of toxic contamination in fish for marginalized fisherfolk, especially Black anglers, said LaDonna Williams, executive director of the environmental justice organization All Positives Possible. She said she often sees Black fishers and the marginalized communities she works with through her advocacy left out of research and data collection. She is working with the San Francisco Estuary Institute to help rectify that exclusion by surveying anglers on the north side of San Francisco Bay about their fishing and consumption habits.

Why people still fish 

Though most of the anglers on the Mission Creek dock on a recent Friday hadn’t heard of the study or PFAS, they knew of health risks from consuming fish from the bay. But many in the community can’t easily give up or limit their fishing, for reasons ranging from pragmatic to spiritual. 

LaDonna Williams regularly sees unhoused people fishing along the north side of San Francisco Bay at spots she frequents. That worries her because she knows people who fish for subsistence or to supplement their diets can’t always weigh the risk of toxic exposure. 

For food-insecure people, a catch might be their only protein that day, said Khalil from the San Francisco Estuary Institute. 

“A hungry person does not care about the toxic load in that fish. A hungry person will not turn down a meal,” Khalil said.  

But for Khalil, fishing is a lifestyle and a precious, if not sacred, practice that connects him to the bay and ancestors who fished generations before. 

“It’s an ancient act,” Khalil said. “It’s part of our survival techniques. When you catch a fish, you feel satisfaction and dignity in that self-determination. Fishing is a really sacred space.” 

Khalil is keenly aware of the contamination that builds up in fish, and fishing is a calculated risk that he accepts, he said. He manages risk by selecting types of fish that likely have low contaminant burdens and avoiding fishing spots next to obvious sources of pollution.

Wu limits her intake of bay fish and generally follows the fishing advisory guidance because she falls into a group the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment, a division of the California Environmental Protection Agency, deems vulnerable: women of child-bearing age. This guideline exists because of increased reproductive health risks. If Wu catches a big fish that may have a higher toxic load, she gives it to a male friend, she said. Still, she eats fish from the bay in moderation because she loves being on the water and fresh catches are delicious. Wu knows that comes with potential hazards, which she considers within the larger picture of life’s risks. 

“It’s kind of like how you know eating cake and soda is bad for you,” Wu said. 

Khalil and Mack Williams said they also fish to decompress after a long day and be in nature. 

“It’s serene,” Williams said. 

As much as the three anglers go to the docks to find peace, they also return for the people. They all said they value the insular, quirky fishing community. 

“I interact with people from different walks of life,” Wu said. “I wouldn’t ever meet the people I know through fishing in my life otherwise.” 

The bay fishing community represents a remarkable diversity of San Franciscans of color — a diversity that Wu said she rarely encountered elsewhere in the city. Even so, she was used to being the only young, female angler in sight. Most people were longtime bay fishers and she had only moved to San Francisco three years ago. Still, she was welcomed by veterans of the scene like Williams, she said.

The limits of advisories

Fishing advisories are the main protective measure in place for anglers. But protecting people in practice is tricky. 

Tests for contamination in fish use samples from fillets, which have lower levels of PFAS than the fish overall. This is not true for some other toxins, which is how sampling fillets became standard practice. That means that for people who eat the whole fish or parts like the head, the advisory guidance is actually based on an underestimate of PFAS contamination. 

“The thresholds are for the muscle, but typically people don’t just eat the muscle — they eat the whole fish or make a stock,” Méndez said. “I do think it’s a gap in our data and our advisory thresholds that hasn’t yet been addressed.” 

Méndez said scarce funding limits further testing of other parts of the fish. 

In Khalil’s view, agencies like the state Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment and the city Department of Public Health have done well to post advisories where people fish, even at obscure spots. Years ago, as a community organizer in Hunters Point, he was involved in developing the original advisories. But there are still problems with the language of advisory signage. 

Mack Williams, a core member of the local angler community, knows the fish contain toxins, as he has been fishing in the bay since his father taught him when he was five years old. Though he moderates how much bay fish he eats, like many experienced anglers, he doesn’t pay attention to the specific guidance of advisories. The technical verbiage on advisory signs is out of sync with how many people in the community exchange information, said Khalil. Trusted messengers like LaDonna Williams can usually better communicate the threat of exposure using everyday language and help anglers to minimize risk, he said.

Wu said she frequently sees older Asian people catching and taking home stingrays and skates, but that regulators don’t provide guidelines for the ray family. She also wants to see increased effort at educating in more languages. Advisories at San Francisco piers like Mission Rock are in English, and people who read mainly or only other languages like Spanish and Cantonese must scan a QR code to access the information displayed on the signs.

Pushing back on individual responsibility 

In Khalil’s view, the regulatory system over-emphasizes the responsibility of the individual fisher rather than more tightly regulating the sources of pollution in San Francisco Bay and the fish living in it. He sees fishing as a natural right that the advisories system doesn’t account for.

To frame the issue in terms of fishers’ responsibility is to get the problem backward, said LaDonna Williams. 

“How about not putting refineries where people live?” she said. “The powers that be are allowing people to pollute our waters in Hunters Point, Treasure Island, Oakland, Rodeo, Richmond, Vallejo…. It’s all along the shorelines. At what point do you stop the contamination?” 

When it comes to PFAS, some upstream regulation has taken place, to some success. Following prohibitions on PFAS in products like food packaging and clothing, most companies have eliminated PFAS from their products, said study author Sutton. She agreed with Williams and Khalil that reducing contamination is critical to addressing human exposure. 

“Ultimately to limit PFAS pollution, we need to stop it at the source,” Sutton said. 

For Khalil, the disproportionate health risk he faces as a lifelong bay fisher who for years worked as a community organizer in Bayview-Hunters Point fits into a bigger story of whose community is clean and whose is saddled with an unfairly large share of pollution. He believes regulation ought to be designed with those inequities in mind.

“I’m probably going to die much earlier than my expected lifespan because of where I live and work and what I eat,” Khalil said.

Editor’s Note 6/5/25: This story has been updated to reflect that although Anthony Khalil has worked extensively in the Bayview-Hunters Point community, he does not live there.