Trump Threatens EPA Action Against San Francisco

LOS ANGELES (AP) — President Donald Trump threatened to unleash the Environmental Protection Agency on San Francisco Wednesday after a California visit during which he blamed the homelessness crisis on "liberal" policies.

Trump accused the city of allowing a tremendous amount of waste, including needles, to go through storm drains into the ocean.

"It's a terrible situation that's in Los Angeles and in San Francisco," Trump told reporters on Air Force One as he returned to Washington. "And we're going to be giving San Francisco — they're in total violation — we're going to be giving them a notice very soon."

"They have to clean it up. We can't have our cities going to hell," he said.

In a statement, Mayor London Breed called Trump's remarks "ridiculous" and said storm drain debris is filtered out at city wastewater treatment plants so that none flows "into the bay or ocean."

San Francisco has long struggled with problems of human waste and needles on the streets in the Tenderloin district, where many addicts and homeless people are found. The city set up public toilets and last year announced formation of a special six-person "poop patrol" team to clean up the human waste.

The city also announced funding to hire people to pick up used needles.

Many of those needles came from the city itself. The health department hands out an estimated 400,000 clean syringes a month under programs designed to reduce the risk of HIV and other infections for drug users who might otherwise share contaminated needles.