Sorely lacking - driving I-5 makes that painfully obvious.
Seems that the sewers have quite the story of their own - from the San Francisco Chronicle:
San Francisco isn’t doing enough to stop supercharged floods
San Francisco’s Adopt-a-Drain program, where residents volunteer to monitor and clean out a designated catch basin, has gotten lots of social media attention — and new sign-ups — during recent storms.
It’s easy to see the appeal of this kind of civic action, especially when it comes with the right to give “your” storm drain cutesy names, like Lana Del Drain or Drainmond Green. The feel-good PR campaign obfuscates a grimmer reality, though. San Francisco’s antiquated stormwater system is prone to flooding, particularly in low-lying areas, and specifically flooding that contains raw sewage. The problem will only get worse in the face of storms enhanced by climate change. Which makes Adopt-a-Drain the paper straw of flood management, a gesture that's as lovely as it is inadequate.
San Francisco’s sewer system is nearly unique among California cities: It combines raw sewage and stormwater runoff into a single system. The San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, which operates the system, touts this as a greener option because most stormwater goes through sewage treatment facilities rather than being discharged directly into the bay. But it also leaves the city far more vulnerable to system-wide backups. When those bottlenecks happen, San Franciscans are confronted with flood waters that contain sewage overflow, which is as disgusting and harmful as it sounds. As one San Francisco resident succinctly described their neighborhood’s stench after witnessing massive flooding in 2015: “Feces. It’s feces.”
Their sewer system is a mess - undersized for the population and poorly maintained. These floods are a regular occurrence every ten years or so. Last big ones were in 2015 when the Orroville Dam had its issues with the spillway. Drought and rain, drought and rain - an endless cycle. Up until about 40 years ago, they built dams and catchment basins to "calm" the floodwaters and to keep the water for agriculture, hydro power and recreation. The enviros put a foolish stop to that.
San Francisco has other problems - they instituted a program to install low-flow toilets without thinking. The water from each flush was needed to keep everything in the sewers "moving" and when the volume of water was lessened, huge jams occurred.
Low-Flow Toilets Backfiring in San Francisco
Low flow toilets are causing problems for the City of San Francisco
Lots more on this story online.
Perfect example of liberals doing stuff that "sounds good" rather than something that actually "does good" - the people making the decisions are not elected, there is no accountability for their actions and if they f*ck up publicly, they are reprimanded and then quietly moved to a different office - often with a pay raise "for their troubles"
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