San Francisco Blog

​While no journalist likes to get beaten to the punch on a story, we were actually glad to read other writers' online postings about the freshly laid fertilizer smell choking San Franciscans on Friday. Strolling from our Mission Bay office to a SOMA watering hole, we repeatedly checked our jacket. Now we're certain it wasn't us.

Unfortunately, no one knows why large swaths of San Francisco smelled like animal dung, and it appears no one ever will. Kristine Roselius, the public information officer for the Bay Area Air Quality Management District just told us they wrapped up their official investigation -- and have no answers.

"We exhausted all the possible sources," she says. "We went to the wastewater treatment plant, the zoo, and other sites and nothing was amiss."

So, the official cause of that nasty stench will go down as "who knows?"

When asked if San Francisco had ever before been sheathed in a fecal cloud, Roselius answered "not to my knowledge."

So, while I've ruled out my jacket as the culprit -- perhaps someone else's is to blame.