SF Gate's Year in Pictures

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The Pilot Responsible

Charges were filed against the pilot involved in the oil spill. And his license, which has already been suspended, may be revoked.

An investigation by the Board of Pilot Commissioners said that Cota should not have sailed in a thick fog, did not take advantage of the Coast Guard vessel traffic service, did not properly instruct the ship's lookout, failed to make proper use of a tug that was accompanying the ship, and ordered full speed ahead just before he hit the bridge.

Well, now that we've found the right person to blame, I feel so much better about 58,000 gallons of oil in the Bay.

Beachwood

The Beachwood suit may end up costing Half Moon Bay more than $36 million.

I don't know if I quite follow the whole lawsuit. It's stunningly complicated.

In 2005 the city won the legal battle over the undeveloped development, Beachwood, which said the area was unsuitable for residential development due to its being a wetland in the California Coastal zone.

But the most recent legal decision says that the city is the one that created these conditions in the first place as part of flood control.

Now the city owes money to the developer and to owners of homes back in 1999 when the city enacted a sewer expansion, which created the wetland conditions and caused flooding.

City officials say they simply do not have the money to pay the judgment. Laws exist that would enable the city to disband - similar to a bankruptcy - and revert to an unincorporated entity of San Mateo County, said Gordon. But he doesn't expect such an unprecedented collapse.

"It's never happened in San Mateo County," Gordon said. "If it has happened elsewhere in the state, I'm not familiar with it."

That'll be good for development, I'm sure.

San Francisco Wants to Ban Burning on Bad Air Days

A proposal being examined in the Bay Area Quality Management District will be open for public comment in the coming months.

On moderately dirty nights, burning in fireplaces and old stoves, but not in EPA certified stoves.

On the 20-30 severly dirty nights, all wood burning would be banned.

Wood smoke in winter accounts for as much as a third of the region's fine particle air pollution, the district estimates. The soot can irritate healthy people and harm children, the elderly and those with lung and heart problems.

There's a reason people stopped burning wood a long time ago. Of course they decided to burn coal instead, so...

"I don't want some fireplace Nazis telling me I can't burn," Bruce Griffing said.

Tom Foley, who has asthma, yearns for a ban to spare him from a neighbor's fireplace smoke that leaves him coughing and choking.

fireplace Nazi?