The Bay Area has about two-dozen trash-impaired waterways. Trash impaired is a nice way of saying there is a lot of garbage in our creeks and rivers.

In the South Bay Coyote Creek, Saratoga Creek, and the Guadalupe River are in the top ten of trash-impaired waterways.

A major problem, beyond ugly and environmentally impacted waterways, is that trash flows from storm drains into the local waterways. Then it flows into the Bay and from there into the Pacific Ocean eventually ending up in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

A list of these waterways compiled by the San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Board that will pass along the information to the Environmental Protection Agency. In turn, the EPA will get nasty with the offending Bay Area cities and counties having them clean up the waterways and implement projects to collect the debris early in the various paths. Cities and counties no doubt will step up their efforts of banning plastic bags.

How bad is it? Last year on Coastal Cleanup Day, volunteers pulled 125 tons of garbage out of the bay, including 15,000 plastic bags.

Save The Bay has information about the trash-impaired waterways.