Mysterious SF Stink

Strange SF stink that will be difficult to place on Mysterious SF's Google Map. 

Source: San Francisco Examiner August 17, 1999 Page A 5

No Luck Sniffing Out Source of 

Mysterious S.F. Stink

Is a red tide behind wave of complaints?

Nobody seemed to know where it came from, and some impolite people from elsewhere said it was a natural condition, but San Francisco was stinky Thursday.

"We're getting sporadic and fleeting Bay Area complaints of an odor," said Terry Lee, Travel spokeswoman for the Bay Area Air Quality Management District. "We have two inspectors out checking it out.

"San Francisco is not a place that normally has industrial type odors, so it's unusual." She said complaints of a smell in the air both Wednesday and Thursday came from "all over," from the avenues near the ocean, South San Francisco, the Marina and Foster City.

The widespread area where the smell was sniffed gave rise to speculation that the odor might be caused by a red tide, a phenomenon caused by algae blooming and mixing with other substances in the ocean.

Or to put it another way, red tide is a seasonal reddish discoloration of sea waters caused by large numbers of red dinoflagellates that kill fish and other organisms by releasing poisonous products that are extremely toxic.

Besides dead fish and other organisms, it causes stink.

Lee herself got a whiff of it and said the odor matched her prior experience with odoriferous red tide output. "It smells like seaweed rotting."

But a survey of red tide experts produced no reports of a current red tide affecting bay or ocean waters.

Said one official in Sonoma County's health department, which monitors red tide incidents because of their effects on shellfish and other marine life: "Have you considered it's just your normal smell? It smells great in Santa Rosa."

Publicly, Mysterious SF says: Red Tide isn't the only situation where a low tide will produce a bad smell. A combination of low tide and a hot day will bake all the seaweed, dead animals, and microbes and make the entire city stink to high heaven. 

Privately Mysterious SF says:  Don't have to be a dick, Santa Rosa.