According to court records, Baykeeper has filed or joined more than 100 lawsuits in federal court in San Francisco since 2020, many of them involving stormwater runoff.<\/p>\n
Baykeeper says that its mission is \u201cto defend San Francisco Bay from the biggest threats and hold polluters and government agencies accountable.\u201d<\/p>\n
It has more than 3,500 members, according to its court filing, many of whom use the areas downstream from the Alco facility for recreation.<\/p>\n
Baykeeper filed its suit Tuesday after federal and state agencies allegedly failed to take action, the organization said.<\/p>\n
Plaintiffs particular about pollutants<\/p>\n
Alco describes itself as a family business with roots in the metal recycling industry that go back to 1909 when Isador Lazar, an immigrant from Europe immigrated to Oakland and began working in the \u201cjunk\u201d business. According to the company\u2019s website<\/a>, Lazar used his horse and wagon to collect, sort and resell metal, an early form of recycling.<\/p>\n Alco was incorporated in 1972 in San Leandro and the business has since grown to five locations in Northern California employing 200 people.<\/p>\n The lawsuit concerns storm runoff at Alco\u2019s facility located on a 12-acre site at 1091 Doolittle Drive in San Leandro.<\/p>\n According to Baykeeper\u2019s court filing, the scrap operations at the location generate particulates and debris that settle on the outdoor surfaces at the facility. In heavy rains, the stormwater carries the pollutants into the Bay \u201cindirectly at Oyster Bay Regional Shoreline approximately .75 miles from the facility.\u201d<\/p>\n Baykeeper alleges Alco\u2019s discharge includes lead, oil and grease, aluminum, iron, zinc, copper, acidic fluids, and fuel.<\/p>\n The stormwater runoff has allegedly \u201cbeen recognized as a leading cause of \u2026 harmful impacts to the water quality of San Francisco Bay,\u201d according to the lawsuit.<\/p>\n \u201cWith every rainfall event, hundreds of millions of gallons of polluted rainwater flow from local industrial sites, such as (Alco\u2019s) facility, and pour into storm drains, local waterways, wetlands and the Bay,\u201d reads the suit.<\/p>\n Alco defends environmental commitment<\/p>\n Baykeeper says that environmental experts believe that \u201cstormwater pollution accounts for more than half of the total pollution entering local creeks, rivers, and coastal waters each year.\u201d<\/p>\n The suit says that Baykeeper conducted five stormwater sampling events of Alco\u2019s discharges in the period from December 2022 to January 2024 and found aluminum, cooper, iron, lead, and zinc at levels that were consistently in excess of the federal benchmarks used to evaluate whether a company has complied with national standards.<\/p>\n \u201cWith every rainfall event, hundreds of millions of gallons of polluted rainwater flow from local industrial sites \u2026 and pour into storm drains, local waterways, wetlands and the Bay.\u201d<\/p>\n San Francisco Baykeeper lawsuit<\/p>\n A request for comment on the lawsuit directed to Baykeeper\u2019s counsel was not immediately returned.<\/p>\n Michael Bercovich, Alco\u2019s chief operating officer, expressed disappointment with what he called Baykeeper\u2019s \u201cinaccurate and demagoguery characterizations\u201d and said Alco would defend against the allegations in the complaint. He emphasized that Alco is a locally owned and controlled company and is \u201c100% committed to protecting the environment.\u201d<\/p>\n He added, \u201cAs a recycling company, we are always looking for ways to operate in environmentally friendly and responsible ways. \u2026 We hope to have a constructive and productive relationship with Baykeeper to resolve the matter.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An environmental organization has filed suit in federal court in San Francisco asserting that polluted stormwater from a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":137978,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[389,70014,70015,70016,20,1312,643,70017,93,4306,405,1016,18913,4720,1667,101,1914,103,102,1530,70018,104,106,105,70019,37833],"class_list":{"0":"post-137977","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-francisco","8":"tag-alameda-county","9":"tag-alco-iron-metal-co","10":"tag-baykeeper","11":"tag-clean-water-act","12":"tag-climate","13":"tag-courts","14":"tag-environment","15":"tag-environmental-groups","16":"tag-featured","17":"tag-featured-news","18":"tag-government","19":"tag-lawsuits","20":"tag-pollution","21":"tag-public-health","22":"tag-recycling","23":"tag-san-francisco","24":"tag-san-francisco-bay","25":"tag-san-francisco-headlines","26":"tag-san-francisco-news","27":"tag-san-leandro","28":"tag-scrap-metal","29":"tag-sf","30":"tag-sf-headlines","31":"tag-sf-news","32":"tag-stormwater-runoff","33":"tag-water-quality"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137977","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=137977"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137977\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/137978"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=137977"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=137977"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=137977"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/LNM-20260116-ALCOLAWSUIT-02.jpg\")
<\/a>A screenshot of the Alco Iron & Metal Co. website<\/a> on Friday, Jan. 16, 2026. The company traces its roots to 1909, and it has been incorporated in San Leandro since 1972. (Screenshot via alcometals.com)<\/p>\n