The State - News from July 4, 1986

San Francisco officials say they are considering dumping abandoned junk cars into the Pacific Ocean. “It’s not a joke,” Rotea Gilford, deputy to Mayor Dianne Feinstein, said of the clunkers that pile up on city streets at a rate of about 10 a day. Gilford noted that several East Coast cities have begun discarding cars at sea, and added, “It’s supposed to enhance sea life and provide breeding places for fish.” The city has regulations banning new auto-dismantling businesses or their expansion, forcing dismantlers to haul them elsewhere. But dismantlers say the long haul and other complications make the operation unprofitable.