Several times per year, San Francisco’s sewage and stormwater system gets overwhelmed by rain runoff. The excess polluted water flows straight into the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay. The city says it’s the best they can do with their resources, but local environmental groups aren’t satisfied with the efforts. … The city says that the overflow occurs no more than 10 times per year to prevent the streets from flooding. The city has two plants that can hold 200 million gallons of water combined. But, according to a lawsuit filed by the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and California State Water Resources Control Board in May 2024, the system’s design has discharged 1.8 million gallons of untreated sewage into the ocean since 2016.