TRASH TALK

Experts Say Trump’s Talking Garbage About San Francisco Needles

The president threatened the city with an environmental violation notice for a supposed flow of needles from the city into the ocean.

President Trump said Wednesday he would slap San Francisco with an environmental violation notice for polluting the ocean with needles—but experts from the city say he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Trump said the city’s homeless problem was to blame for the supposed flow of needles going into the ocean, but city officials say they have grated drains to prevent that from happening. “We haven’t had any [recent] problems with syringes,” said San Francisco Public Utilities Commission spokesman Tyler Gamble, according to San Francisco Chronicle. Pollutants are removed from waste water at the city’s two treatment facilities if they haven’t already been filtered out by grates beneath the streets. Mayor London Breed insisted that there’s “no debris flow out into the bay or the ocean,” and added: “If the president wants to talk about homelessness, we are committed to working with our state and federal partners on actual solutions.”