ESTUARY 1 SCIENCE • RESTORATION • WATERSHED • POLITICS SPECIES BAY San Francisco Estuary Partnership

Bay Swimmers Revel in Experience Despite Traffic, Bites, and Pathogens

Slot Limits for Sevengills?

Cocktail of Six Antibotics, Three Anti-Depressants, and One Anti-Diabetic Medicating our Bay

Estuary Managers Confront Coastal Challenges

Green Cement Blues

Sierra to Sea Reflowed

NE WS

DECEMBER 2018 VOL. 27, NO. 4 Pharmaceuticals ...... 2 Bay Swimming ...... 3 Shark Fishing ...... 5 Hunters Point ...... 7 Sierra to the Sea ...... 9 Estuary Programs ...... 13 Harbor Seals ...... 15 Sediment Mounds ...... 16 Cement Plant ...... 18 2 DECEMBER 2018 ESTUARY NEWS MONITORING ill effects. Also on the list are three antidepressants, a class that has been shown to have physiological effects on mollusks, crustaceans, Medicating the Bay algae, and protozoans, and to impact fish survival and reproduction. NATE SELTENRICH, REPORTER large Brita filter of activated REMOVAL EFFICIENCY FOR FOUR DRUGS Pharmaceuticals are pouring into carbon with sand and gravel,” the Bay, even if we never flush pills. explains Karin North, 1,000,000 watershed protection High Removal Efficiency influent Compounds in painkillers and other effluent common oral drugs are still excreted manager for the city of Palo 100,000 from our bodies, routed through Alto. “It just gets those small wastewater treatment plants that particles out, and since a lot 10,000 of these contaminants like to can’t remove them completely, then Low Removal Efficiency discharged to the Bay where they may sorb onto the solids, that’s 1,000 harm marine life. where you might find them.” 100 The problem isn’t unique to In order to fully remove

pharmaceuticals, says North, (ng/L) Concentration the Bay Area, affecting waterways 10 worldwide. It’s also not going away the plant would need to purify wastewater to drinking- — and likely to get worse, says Diana 1 Lin, an environmental scientist with water standards through Caffeine Acetaminophen Metoprolol Carbamazephine the San Francisco Estuary Institute processes known as reverse Source: SFEI (SFEI), which recently published a osmosis and ozonation. But report on pharmaceutical pollution these technologies are costly and Then there is the anti-diabetic as part of its Regional Monitoring thus unlikely to be used on any water drug metformin, poorly metabolized Program for Water Quality in San discharged to the Bay, she says. by the human body and found in high Francisco Bay. Some common A better option, suggests Sejal concentrations in wastewater effluent drugs are already more prevalent in Choksi-Chugh, executive director and surface waters across the U.S. wastewater than caffeine. of advocacy group San Francisco and Europe. It’s also estrogenic and appears to feminize the reproductive “The population in the Bay Area is Baykeeper, may be the use of treatment wetlands such as at organs of male fish. In the SFEI study, continuing to increase, as well as age, median concentrations of metformin so this means an expected increased Petaluma’s Ellis Creek plant or San Lorenzo’s Oro Loma. Also known and the sum of the top three over-the- use of pharmaceuticals,” says Lin, counter painkillers (acetaminophen/ who coauthored the report. “We want as constructed wetlands, these facilities use natural processes Tylenol, naproxen/Aleve, and to be vigilant in monitoring these involving wetland vegetation, soils, ibuprofen/Advil) exceeded median contaminants.” and their associated microbes to concentrations of caffeine in effluent. In 2016 and 2017, seven Bay Area slowly clean and filter water. “Some of Emma Rosi, an aquatic ecologist treatment plants tested incoming the emerging science shows that they with the Cary Institute of Ecosystem and outgoing wastewater for 104 can help remove pharmaceuticals Studies in New York and a renowned pharmaceutical compounds. This from the waste stream,” she says, all expert on pharmaceuticals in provided a measure of not only which at a fraction of the cost of upgrading freshwater environments, says drugs were entering the Bay, but also to reverse osmosis. how well they were cleaned from she’s particularly concerned about Source reduction is important, too, incoming sewage. Removal efficiency how mixtures of compounds may North stresses, like prioritizing diet varied widely from plant to plant and affect aquatic and marine life. A and exercise over pharmaceuticals, compound to compound. study she coauthored whose results ensuring doctors prescribe the right were published last month in Nature Among the seven plants, two dose for the right body, designing detected 69 different pharmaceutical employ what’s known in the industry drugs that break down in the compounds in caddisfly larvae along as tertiary treatment. The other environment, and requiring that a creek in Australia receiving effluent five stop at secondary treatment, manufacturers take back unused from a sewage plant with tertiary designed primarily to degrade the medications — which California treatment. biological content of the sewage. recently became the first state in the Tertiary treatment further cleans the nation to do. “Pharmaceuticals are getting into aquatic ecosystems and then moving water prior to discharge, but does not Among the 104 pharmaceuticals target pharmaceutical compounds through food webs with unknown tested in the SFEI study, 17 merit ecological consequences,” Rosi says. — and, Lin notes, did not always further evaluation because concen- “If you went to the doctor and told outperform secondary treatment in trations in Bay water could exceed them that you were taking 69 different the study. protective thresholds for toxicity pharmaceuticals, they would be very Palo Alto’s 46-year-old wastewater to marine life, the authors write. facility, which discharges to an These include six antibiotics, whose concerned for your well being.” unnamed slough, is among those release into the environment can CONTACT using tertiary treatment. “[As a] last contribute to the growing problem of [email protected]; step we basically put it through a antibiotic resistance, among other [email protected] 3

RECREATION What is of concern is the possibility of a bite from either of the two pinnipeds that live in the Bay, California sea lions and harbor seals Saltwater Revival (see p.15). Last December three swimmers were bit in one week, ALETA GEORGE, REPORTER The scene may be picturesque, and the San Francisco Maritime but the dangers of swimming in An hour before sunrise on a cool National Historic Park closed Aquatic the Bay are real. Sharing the water October morning, a small group of Park Cove for several days. “It’s with wild animals means sharing it swimmers (what they call a pod) not uncommon for swimmers to in sickness and in health — theirs, meets on the beach of the South occasionally get bitten or scratched End Rowing Club in San Francisco’s that is. Right now, Sausalito’s Marine by sea lions or harbor seals,” Aquatic Park. For safety they strap Mammal Center is dealing with a Johnson says. “But given the number waterproof blinking lights to the large outbreak of leptospirosis, a of people swimming and the number back of their goggles, but wetsuits bacterial infection that can cause fatal of pinnipeds in the water, it’s rare.” are conspicuously absent. The kidney damage in California sea lions. temperature of the water is around As of early November, the center was Robinson thinks it would be more 60 degrees Fahrenheit, warm for San treating 220 rescued sea lions that likely for him to get hit by a car than Francisco Bay open-water swimmers. had tested positive for leptospirosis, bitten by a sea lion, though he admits In winter, when the water plunges and according to the Marine Mammal he can be startled by encountering down to the high 40s, they still swim Center website, about two-thirds one in the water. — though not as far or for as long. of them will die. The bacteria are “We are lucky to live in California “Swimming sustains me,” says Fran transmitted via urine while the where we can swim in the Bay,” Hegeler, vice president of the South mammals are hauled out and piled says Johnson. “We also have a great End Rowing Club. “It is what gets me atop each other. Those being treated population of wild marine animals up every day. It revives my spirit.” at the center are acute cases, and it that live with us. They can get scared That’s the kind of enthusiastic is believed that many more have mild and defend themselves, especially in language some Bay swimmers cases and survive infection. the water. Or, a younger animal can express. Those who have been doing it for a while don’t seem to dwell on the dangers like catching hypothermia, being swept out to sea on a tide, getting hit by ships or small boats, exposing themselves to pathogens and pollutants, or having a run-in with a wild animal. While they are aware of these risks, they are more likely to focus on the fact that, as one swimmer says about the activity, “It’s awesome!” The six swimmers step into the inky water and swim with long, strong strokes alongside the Hyde Street Pier and the C.A. Thayer, a wooden-hulled, three-masted schooner built in 1895, twelve years after the formation of the South End Rowing Club. Each swimmer finds their own pace. Brad Robinson, a longtime pool swimmer new to open- water in the Bay, says he always Photo: Clay Schmitz, San Francisco Baykeeper swims hard in the beginning to warm up. “It usually takes me 200 meters see you as something to play with.” before I stop questioning why I’m While leptospirosis is dangerous for sea lions, it isn’t likely to affect Johnson encourages swimmers to doing it!” he says. visit the Marine Mammal Center swimmers. The Center’s Director of where they can learn more about the They head towards the opening of veterinary science Shawn Johnson animals they swim with. Aquatic Park Cove about 400 meters says that the bacteria is not known away, with the dim but familiar hulk of to survive for long in saltwater. “The Hegeler, who has been swimming Alcatraz in the distance. The pod stops chance is pretty low of a human in the Bay for 10 years, admits at the cove entrance to clump together contracting the disease unless you’re she was terrified at first. She felt before turning west towards Fort interacting with the animals. We panicked about not being able to Mason against the flood tide. A full have never had a human case in the see, and was nervous about sharks Hunter’s Moon slips below the south decades we’ve been treating it.” pillar of the Golden Gate Bridge. continued to next page 4 DECEMBER 2018 ESTUARY NEWS

SALTWATER, cont’d from page 3 signs at beaches, on their website, by email, and on a hotline. In the TURNINGPOINT and sea lions. She swam in a wetsuit last three years the agency has only and stayed in the cove for years, and posted these kinds of warnings at River Flows eventually her fears subsided. “I’m Aquatic Park four times, says SFPUC not that worried about sea life now. supervising biologist Ross Duggan. on the Brink They’re interested in other things,” What may prove to be more JOHN HART, REPORTER she says. problematic for swimmers are It was a rare decisive moment in The South End Rowing Club and contaminants of emerging concern California water. On December 12, the the similarly minded Dolphin Club, (CECs). Baykeeper notes that while State Water Resources Control Board founded four years later in 1877, 91 contaminants are regulated by resolved, at the close of a marathon share a beach in Aquatic Park for the Clean Water Act, about 100,000 meeting, to require more water to their clubhouses and docks. Both chemicals have been registered or be left in the Tuolumne, Merced, clubs lease their buildings from the approved in the U.S. over the last 30 Stanislaus, and lower San Joaquin San Francisco Recreation and Parks years. CECs include microplastics, Rivers. In the first of three planned Department and are open to the pharmaceuticals (see p. 2), personal amendments to the Bay-Delta Water public Tuesday through Saturday care products, and other endocrine Quality Plan, the board set early season for $10 a day. disruptors. Choksi-Chugh says that flows in the three mountain streams Popularity in Bay swimming studies have found microplastics in at 40 percent of “unimpaired” levels and in the clubs has increased in high levels in the surface waters of (actually a range of 30-50 percent). recent years, reflecting a surge in the Bay, suggesting that swimmers These targets are well below the recreational and competitive open- could accidentally swallow them. 60 percent of unimpaired that the water swimming worldwide. When Baykeeper is working with and ecosystem really needs, as determined Hegeler joined the South End Rowing encouraging the 42 water treatment in 2010 by the board itself (see also pp. Club about five years ago there were plants that discharge water into the 9-12). But they are much more than 800 members, and today there are San Francisco Bay to upgrade their the meager flows the streams have in 1,400, she says. Members swim in treatment plants to ones that treat fact been getting, and much more than pods or solo, and join group swims these types of pollutants. agricultural and urban diverters would supported by pilot boats when the willingly let go. route crosses a boating channel, such Mostly though, Bay swimmers as a recent South End Rowing Club report that they feel healthier. During the nine years the board swim to Alcatraz and back. Hegeler says she never gets sick. has been working up to this moment, Robinson says he doesn’t have a a parallel process has been dragging Swimmers in the Bay can feel constant runny nose like he did along: negotiations among water good about water quality, says Sejal the 12 years he swam in a pool. suppliers, state agencies, and some Choksi-Chugh, director of the San “When people ask me the difference environmental groups to produce Francisco Baykeeper, a nonprofit between swimming in a pool and the Voluntary Settlement Agreements that that works to protect and improve Bay, I tell them that the water in the could help fish while minimizing legal the health of the Bay. Choksi-Chugh Bay is alive. Every day is different. It’s and political battles. On the 12th, the says that before the federal Clean interactive, and not swimming in a directors of the state’s Departments Water Act was enacted in 1972 and bowl of soup.” of Water Resources and Fish and began to be enforced, there was a Wildlife showed evidence of recent higher chance of getting sick. Back on the water, the moon setting behind the Golden Gate rapid progress and asked the board to “It’s much cleaner and safer than defer its own action. Some novel and Bridge, the swimmers reach Fort it used to be, and as long as you Mason after about 45 minutes and promising ideas were sketched, which don’t swim within three days of a big the board promised to study as it turns turn around. On their way back to rain runoff, you’re generally safe,” the club, the sun rises over the Bay its attention to the Sacramento drainage she says, adding that there still and the Delta itself. In the end, though, Bridge, splashing color and light are outlying incidents. “Swimmers on the water. “It was a celestial the long-awaited plan for the southern should be cautious about going into rivers passed, on a vote of four to one. sandwich,” says Hegeler. “It’s an the water if they smell oil. Instead, amazing experience. You feel the Next stop, if history is a guide: the they should report it. There’s a courts. water on your skin. You taste it. You chance we can do something about share it with other animals. It is an oil spill if it’s reported early.” spiritual and connects you to the The water at Aquatic Park earth.” Cove, and 15 other beach sites Report Sick Seals & Sea Lions around San Francisco, is tested weekly for indicator bacteria by 415-289-SEAL (7325) San Francisco’s Public Utilities Marine Mammal Center Hospital, Commission and Department of 2000 Bunker Rd, Sausalito Public Health. If water samples are found to exceed state standards, water contact could possibly expose people to a pathogen. In that case, the SFPUC will warn people with

Photo: Robin Meadows 5

FISHING activities of dozens of charter boats, says he has seen interest in catching the largest sevengills spike in the past five or six years, primarily among Shark Hunt Stand Off a small handful of charter boat companies. He estimates that anglers ALASTAIR BLAND, REPORTER California are allowed one sevengill caught and kept 180 large sharks in 2018 in San Francisco Bay. They frequent the deepest holes shark, one sixgill shark, and one and shipping channels of San soupfin shark per day. There are no “Is that kind of harvest something Francisco Bay, and few people ever size restrictions. John Ugoretz, a the population can withstand?” Hurley see them. A handful of local fishing marine biologist with the California says. Fishery managers have no idea guides, however, have become skilled Department of Fish and Wildlife, says — primarily because they don’t know, at finding and catching broadnose fishing restrictions on sevengills — not even approximately, how many sevengill sharks. first implemented in the early 1990s sevengills are out there. — could be cinched up if it becomes These large, bullheaded predators clear that fishermen are increasingly “There hasn’t been any long-term live in coastal waters across much of targeting and killing them. “Because monitoring study of the population, the globe. In the spring and summer sharks are slow-growing, slow- so we have no baseline estimate,” months, they enter shallow estuaries, reproducing and long-lived, we know says Sean Van Sommeran, founder of including San Francisco Bay, to give we have to be cautious,” he says. the Santa Cruz-based Pelagic Shark birth to their pups, and it’s during Research Foundation. these seasonal aggregations that Department of Fish and Wildlife catch records, in fact, already show a At the global level, the sport fishermen target them. Armed International Union for the with heavy line, large hooks, and fish steady increase in sevengill landings over the past two decades. From Conservation of Nature, which heads for bait, these anglers often assesses the conservation status drop anchor in the murky, current- 2001 to 2005, recreational anglers on local charter boats — officially of the Earth’s plants and animals, torn waters between Alcatraz and the designates the broadnose sevengill Golden Gate Bridge. regulated as “commercial passenger fishing vessels” — caught and killed shark as “data deficient.” In 2017, It was there, in August of 2013, an average total of 28 sevengills per scientists from U.C. Davis, the that an angler fishing on the year. From 2006 to 2010, they took Aquarium of the Bay, and the Berkeley-based charter boat California 57 each year, and from 2011 to 2015, University of San Diego published Dawn caught and kept a 322-pound 84. In 2016 and 2017, anglers on findings that San Francisco Bay sevengill. The catch, described in these fishing boats caught and kept sevengills migrate hundreds of miles a story in Western Outdoor News, was 102 and 77 sevengills, respectively. along the coast — behavior that can reported to be a record at the time, These numbers do not include sharks make it difficult to accurately track though it didn’t last. On July 9, 2017, caught on privately owned boats. population changes. Another paper, a fisherman caught and killed a published in the journal PLOS One Stockton-based recreational in 2015, found San Francisco Bay 342-pound sevengill, according to the fisherman Dave Hurley, who writes records archive of the International sevengills to be a genetically distinct and distributes an online fishing population, with about 40 percent of Game Fish Association. An article newsletter several times each at FishSniffer.com reported that the week and closely follows the fishing angler was fishing with Legal Limit continued on next page Sportfishing, a charter service also in Berkeley. Now, as social-media hype and the prospect of Facebook fame stokes up excitement among trophy seekers, some other fishermen and conservationists want to see the pursuit ended before it depletes shark numbers. “These guys are trying to catch the biggest females out there to set a record,” says David McGuire, founder of Shark Stewards, a Berkeley conservation group that focuses largely on protecting open-ocean species from the devastating shark- fin trade. “It’s unfortunate, because these bigger fish are the most important ones in the population, and they’re in the Bay to reproduce.” Catching and keeping these sharks is not illegal. Licensed anglers in Sample Facebook post image of sevengill catch. 6 DECEMBER 2018 ESTUARY NEWS

SHARK, cont’d from page 5 SPECIESSPOT individuals born to the same parents. This could indicate a population Sleuthing especially susceptible to overfishing. Sturgeon Berkeley fishing-boat owner Steven Mitchell feels quite sure the Snags local sevengill population has already KATHLEEN WONG, REPORTER declined. “It’s not as easy to catch the big sharks as it once was,” says The green sturgeon looks like a fish Mitchell, owner of the San Francisco that’s swum directly out of the ancient The Tracy pumps, which grind up charter boat Top Gun. Mitchell takes ocean. With the flattened snout of a fish venturing too near their inlets, paying customers fishing for a dragon, and sides armored with bony could also pose a threat. Louvers variety of local species, including scutes, Acipenser medirostris looks capable resembling shutter slats were halibut, salmon, and sharks. “But I of weathering anything nature could installed in front of the pumps to tell them before the trip, if we catch throw at it. But in fact local sturgeon are create eddies that direct fish toward a big shark, that fish is not coming struggling; the population that spawns a bypass channel. “Sturgeon are very into the boat, because these are the in the Sacramento Bay-Delta was different” from the salmon and bass breeders,” he says. declared federally threatened in 2006. the louvers were designed for, says Conservationists think the time has UC Davis researchers are now trying to Steel. “They live on the bottom, have a come to rewrite the laws on catching figure out why the fish is in trouble. triangular body shape, and a different evolutionary history.” sevengills. Hurley and McGuire want The campus is home to the world’s to see officials place both minimum only green sturgeon rearing program. Steel has been observing how and maximum size limits on Scientists in professor Nann Fangue’s sturgeon fare against the louvers at sevengills. This system of regulating lab study the captive-spawned progeny the campus’ J. Amorocho Hydraulics catch, known as a slot limit, protects of traditionally harvested fish donated Laboratory. There, she’s been immature juveniles as well as the by the Yurok tribe of northwestern swimming sturgeon of various sizes in largest, most fecund adults. Van California. With funding from partners a flume outfitted with louvers retired Sommeran says he would support a including the California Department from the Tracy pumps. While sturgeon change to the law but doubts there is of Water Resources, the Delta Science between 6 and 12 cm long often enough population data “to make a Program, and the National Oceanic slipped between the lab’s test louvers, case for protecting the bigger fish.” and Atmospheric Administration, the fish longer than 16 cm were more likely to bypass. Faster water speeds, Indeed, state officials tend to program is designed explicitly to help implement new fishing regulations save the species. Steel found, improved bypass success for these larger fish, but put smaller only after research shows that “If we knew how large they are fish at greater risk. a species has been impacted or when they’re moving through each depleted. With sevengills, McGuire portion of the system, we’d know a Green sturgeon arriving at the real feels that in the absence of better lot more about the threats they face bypass are generally greater than population data, it would be prudent at each life stage, and where we need 18 cm long. So young fish have likely to act cautiously and implement a slot to put our energy,” says postdoctoral outgrown the danger by the time limit now to protect the juveniles and fellow Anna Steel. “But the Delta is a they’ve reached that section of the the largest adults, both for sevengills black box now.” Delta. “It’s great news,” says Steel. and their larger cousin, the sixgill. As reassuring as the researchers’ The Bay’s sevengill population, he In a system teeming with introduced says, is already being impacted — not species, sturgeon might be consumed findings have been thus far, they don’t pinpoint the cause of the sturgeon’s just by fishing but also pollution and by non-native fishes. Graduate student loss of prey and habitat. “We need Sarah Baird examines how tempting demise. A combination of factors that have been changing or intensifying better science,” he says, “but science green sturgeon are as meals with the takes time, and there is never enough aquatic equivalent of gladiator fights: over time may be to blame. And so the UC Davis team will continue to convincing data until it is too late she places sturgeon of the same size in for many species.” tanks containing largemouth or striped illuminate these gaps by studying the bass. Video cameras follow the action. green sturgeon they rear from tiny egg CONTACT David McGuire, to primeval river prowler. [email protected]; Sean Van Apparently, not even small green Sommeran, [email protected]; sturgeon are preferred prey. “Often the Earlier Sturgeon Stories ESTUARY [email protected] bass shake their head, and — ptui! Spit Surgeons: www.sfestuary. Records Archive: http:// them out,” Baird says. “The scutes are org/estuary-news-sturgeon- wrec.igfa.org/WRecDetail. extra sharp when sturgeon are young. surgeons/ aspx?uid=66871&cn=Shark,%20 I can only imagine how they feel in a Intakes: www.sfestuary.org/ sevengill#.W8pXHWhKhPY bass’s mouth.” Sturgeon more than wp-content/uploads/2017/08/ about 20 cm long rarely got eaten, EstNews-Jun2014-final-v3.pdf Bay Nature 2010: https://baynature. possibly because they were too big to org/article/saving-the-bays-sharks/ fit into the predators’ mouths.

Green sturgeon from UC Davis lab. Photo: Joel Sartore, Photo Ark / NG Image Collection 7

EQUITY Low notes that “radiological issues have gotten most media coverage,” but that there’s a “whole array of contaminants that are not Toxic Soup Strains Silos radiological in nature” also present in the area. Off the top of her head she AUDREY MEI YI BROWN, REPORTER to experience a supersaturation of lists petroleum, mercury, PCBs, lead, Theo Ellington remembers biking overlapping pollution sources. metals, and intrusive vapors. . through the Hunters Point shipyard Roots run deep in Hunters Point. Dr. Ahimsa Porter Sumchai, a as a kid, before there was a road. He For many residents, family histories local physician and activist, says grew up in nearby Bayview, and that weave in and out of the shipyard. she wasn’t shocked by the data lifelong relationship comes through Black workers were recruited from falsification. Sumchai has worked in the way he talks about his home. the American South to work in Bay on environmental-justice issues in He is now a resident of the shipyard’s Area shipyards during World War Hunters Point for more than 20 years, Parcel A development, a set of II. Although the demographics of and that experience, in addition to luxury condominiums overlooking an Bayview and Hunters Point are now her time on the Remediation Advisory active Superfund site. In November changing — “there’s a segment of Board supervising the cleanup, has he ran for a local Supervisor spot. the population that feels like it’s shown her that regulatory safeguards Although he did not win the seat, being pushed out,” says Ellington — and oversight continue to fail in it’s clear he knows District 10 this corner of the city remains around protecting Hunters Point residents, intimately — its people, its pollution, 30 percent Black, with growing Asian she says. The shipyard’s legacy is just its trouble getting the Navy, the U.S. and Latinx populations. one component of the neighborhood’s Environmental Protection Agency, Recently, Hunters Point has “environmental toxic soup.” and cleanup contractor Tetra Tech appeared regularly in to address the toxic soup in this the mainstream news gentrifying corner of San Francisco. cycle due to fraud in “People are sick and tired of being the cleanup of the sick and tired,” he says. Navy shipyard, which Recent headlines about falsified was contaminated soil-contamination tests are with radioactive just the latest development in waste from nuclear a longer history of failures and research. Many sources frustrations for the neighborhood. have documented Residents say they want honest myriad problems answers and consistent attention with the cleanup from regulators who, from a local effort, performed by perspective, often seem mired in the contractor Tetra siloed decision-making and unable Tech and overseen by to think holistically enough to create the Navy and EPA. In a safe environment for these San what is now called by Hunters Point residents assemble at a protest near the new Franciscans to live in. some the biggest case Lennar/FivePoint condominium development overlooking the contaminated Navy shipyard. Photos: Audrey Mei Yi Brown Ellington’s voice on the phone of eco-fraud in U.S. seems to come with a thousand- history, test results mile stare. He tells stories passed from at least 90 percent of shipyard Regulators and local residents down from community elders about soil samples have been called into tend to have different ways of what has happened in the shipyard question, and two radiation control thinking about toxicity in Hunters over the decades, from human supervisors have been sentenced Point. Sheridan Enomoto, an and animal testing in the Navy’s to prison. organizer with the San Francisco- Radiological Defense Lab to the “What happened with Tetra Tech based environmental nonprofit more recent landfill fire in 2007. is really unprecedented,” says Tina Greenaction, says she approaches The shipyard has “been a fixture in Low, a water resources engineer toxicity from the perspective of community since ‘70s,” a toxic ghost with the San Francisco Bay Regional place, and the connection between the community can’t shake. Water Quality Control Board. “It’s people and land. She takes a holistic not normal by any stretch.” view on contamination, considering To enter Hunters Point, one how various sources add up to crosses a short bridge and passes From a local perspective, trust cumulative health impacts that by the Restaurant Supply Depot in Tetratech, the Navy, and the EPA locals have to live with. and Greyhound bus lot, the citywide has been compromised time and wastewater treatment plant, and the time again. According to Ellington, Regulatory agencies like the Port of San Francisco, crisscrossing “there’s a disconnect right now water board approach contamination freeways, a trucking depot, and the between the people affected by problems differently: “We just site where a proposed PG&E power disaster and people in charge break it apart into pieces that are plant was shut down by community overseeing the cleanup.” manageable,” says Low. resistance — all without seeing a continued on next page grocery store. To enter this place is 8 DECEMBER 2018 ESTUARY NEWS TOXIC, cont’d from page 7 Low has experienced the Hunters Point’s site-specific risk frustrations of regulatory silos of exposure and “cause pollutants But by constructing a conceptual site firsthand, when issues have to mobilize” in communities close model, Low and her colleagues now gotten segmented depending on to brownfields and industrial sites. aim to “get a very clear picture of the program or regulation. “The The Commission also noted that how these things are interacting — people you’re talking to might not unequal quality of shoreline protection what are your sources and where are have the right expertise or access structures (like a sea wall) could they going?” to particular funds you need to lead to disproportionate damage in Enomoto has long observed address it,” and these mismatches of disadvantaged communities. Areas government agencies “working in expertise or funding access are “not with lower-quality shoreline protection silos,” isolated from each other and uncommon,” she says. could be hit harder by flooding separate from the communities In Low’s view, the best way because of amplified wave reflection they serve. In her view, the result to tackle silos is to create a off of protective structures. is a fragmented understanding of multidisciplinary team. Additionally, As the Commission observes, how contamination plays out upon it’s essential that regulators and as local residents know well, the community, which in turn yields recognize “even if a [problem] the impacts of climate change will incomplete solutions. not fall on everyone’s shoulders equally. In Hunters Point, existing problems will likely be made worse. At the same time, people outside of Hunters Point should care about this potential flooding. “What’s happening in the shipyard affects the Bay, what’s happening in the Bay affects the state, and what’s happening in the state affects the country,” says Enomoto. Our world is not siloed, and as Enomoto speaks to me, smoke from wildfires 150 miles away chokes San Francisco. Local resident Theo Ellington believes he was sold a false dream when he bought his home on Parcel A of the shipyard. The condominiums As an alternative, Greenaction doesn’t fit into an [obvious] program on Parcel A indeed look part of a spearheaded a program called IVAN box, that doesn’t mean you don’t dream: up on a hill with manicured (Identifying Violations Affecting have to address it,” she says. “You expanses of lawn and a clear view of Neighborhoods), which registers have to be a little creative.” the waterfront. The idyllic picture is reported health impacts from Looking to the future, the urgency of only missing its white picket fence. community members and works bridging regulatory silos is mounting After Ellington moved his family there, backwards to locate pollution in the face of climate change. Given the the dream crumbled as the basic sources. IVAN is a grassroots model; shipyard’s proximity to the shoreline, safety of the picturesque property was individual residents’ experiences add local residents wonder about the rising called into question. It felt personal to up to complete a collective toxic map. level of the Bay and the increasing homeowners and the community as a A new community-led air-quality likelihood of extreme storms and whole. “This would not happen in the monitoring project is also underway floods — what will happen when toxic Marina,” says Angel, referring to San at Greenaction, with funding from the waste is exposed to water? Francisco’s northern waterfronts. California Air Resources Board. Ten air monitors will be placed around Enomoto points to the proposed “All these hazards were shipped to Hunters Point, with a community shoreline sea wall as an example of an this side of town,” says Ellington, who advisory group overseeing the inadequate solution to sea-level rise nonetheless remains hopeful about program. built from a fragmented rather than the area’s future. He concludes, with a holistic perspective. The sea wall is break in his voice, “We deserve to be a According to Greenaction not continuous, and it therefore offers vibrant community.” executive director and longtime incomplete and inequitable protection. CONTACT activist Bradley Angel, his Moreover, even a continuous sea wall organization is “not really doing this [email protected]; would not prevent contaminants from [email protected]; for the grant money. It’s actually getting into groundwater. kind of a pain, it’s a lot of work,” he AhimsaPorterSumchaiMD@comcast. says. However, the data from the air One of the other major regional net; [email protected] monitors is invaluable because it regulatory agencies, the Bay will make local pollution legible and Conservation and Development Hazard Sandwich Story, “validate what the community has Commission, acknowledged similar June 2018 ESTUARY News known for a long time.” concerns in its 2016 Policies for a Rising www.sfestuary.org/estuary-news-rbd- Bay report, noting that future flooding islais-creek-hyper-creek-mediates- from sea-level rise could exacerbate hazard-sandwich/ 9

BASELINE Reflowing the Sierra to the Sea Bay Institute Releases 20th Anniversay Edition of 1998 Report

ARIEL RUBISSOW OKAMOTO, REPORTER 50 MRED 40 A fall flight over the Mexican coast where the Colorado 30 River meets the Sea of Cortez 20 offered me a gut-punching, eye-screwing, visual on the 10 results of impaired flow. The 0 semantics of ‘unimpaired’ and 50 ‘impaired’ flow have laced the C 40 B language of California water (Feb-June, MAF) management debates since 30 some engineer invented these 20 politically ‘neutral’ terms long ago. The terms refer to 10 our alteration of freshwater 0 flows from snowmelt and 1967 1977 1987 1997 2007 2017 runoff by dams and diversions. Wettest Above Average Average Below Average Dry Super Critical But whatever the labels, or which estuary you’re referring to, The Estuary’s fish and wildlife have experienced near-permanent drought. keeping these flows from reaching Figure A: In the last 20 years, Bay inflow has been increasingly impaired, as a result of high levels the sea via rivers can starve these of water diversion.MRED The driest conditions EBE (the Dry plus Super B Critical year types), which occurred aquatic ecosystems of their liquid naturally in 20% of years, are now 2%experienced in the estuary 70%0% of (Super the time. Critical) Summarized from life force. Whether it’s the vast 2018 Sierra to the Sea, p. 283. yellowing salt flats that are all that 18% 20% remain of the mighty marshes of 1953-1997 1998-2017 the pre-dam Colorado River delta, the conclusions, making it more like journalist John Hart in his foreword or our own estuary at the mouth of an early attempt at water community to the new edition. “Maybe, just the Sacramento and San Joaquin consensus on baseline conditions maybe, if we do a great many things Rivers, when we “impair” the flow than an environmental manifesto. right, we can bring the ecosystem from the mountains to sea, the In December 2018, the Institute back partway without giving back result is ecological trauma. released a 20th anniversary edition — any meaningful fraction of the water Twenty years ago, the Bay Institute hardbound, and glossyC — that EBEincludes weB are taking. On the evidence, this released its own drill-down into this both a faithful reproduction of the approach has failed.” original maps and history, as well as impairment, writing the first ecological The evidence presented in the a data-packed,1953-1997 18-page Afterword 1998-2017 history of the vast Central Valley 31% new edition’s Afterword is a record summarizing more recent trends. 40% and San Francisco Bay watershed of continuing collapse. Four more stretching “From the Sierra to the “For the last twenty years we native fish populations (and orcas that Sea,” as the report is called. A variety have been trying to think22% our feed on Central30% Valley salmon) have of water users, stakeholders, and way around the central problem been added to the list of endangered well-known engineers weighed in on of flows,” writes environmental species. Three listed species — Wettest Above Average Average winterBelow Averagerun ChinookDry salmon,Super and Critical longfin and delta smelt — declined by more than 97 percent between

RE 1 ERMEthe DR environmentally-proactive late Bar chart: Actual runoff to San Francisco Bay has continued to decline1990s since 1998.and Unimpaired 2017. Salinity Central Valley from runoff ocean was divided into quintiles from Wettest to Dry; years drier than 2015 were categorized as “Super Critical” years. Pie Charts: In the 45 years preceding publication of From the Sierra to the Sea, “Super Critical”tides runoff continues conditions toin the creep Bay’s watershed up estuary. occurred naturally only 2 percent of the time (i.e., in only one single year, 1977),Exotic but the estuaryfish are experienced happily Super ensconced Critical conditions in 31% of the time (14 years). Since publication, there have been no Superan Critical altered years food naturally, web. but SuperExtremely Critical conditions high occurred in the estuary 40% of the time. As a result of high levels of water diversion, dry conditions (the Dry plus Super Critical year types), which would occur naturally in 20% of years, nowlevels occur 70% of waterof the time. diversion Data source: combinedCalifornia Depart - ment of Water Resources (CDWRwith 2016, reduced 2017). snowpack, low inputs of sediment from upstream, pollution, and rising sea levels are all exacer– bating ecological effects.

continued on next page 1998 & 2018 Editions New 2018 Report at www.bayecotarium.org/sierra-to-the-sea 10 DECEMBER 2018 ESTUARY NEWS REFLOWING, cont’d from page 9 Laser Like Focus on Last 20 Years “We are in that once-in-a- generation place where we take Flows Down, Fish Down, Salinity Up, Collapse Closing stock and consider making major changes to how we manage the The 18-pages and twenty “When populations are near Estuary ecosystem,” says the Bay years (1998-2017) spanned by extinction, that’s the time we should Institute’s program director, Gary the Afterword cover changes in strengthen protections, but every Bobker, who oversaw production of inflows, outflows and reverse flows; time we have a drought, all the rules both the original edition and the 2018 Central Valley water use; tree crop go out the window,” says Bobker, update. The last time, he says, was acreage; native and non-native citing changes to Sacramento River in the mid-1990s, when Congress fish abundance; as well as rising temperature requirements in 2014 and the state adopted major water temperatures and water levels due and 2015 that left salmon eggs with a management reforms, and when big to global warming. More charts and more than 95 percent mortality rate. new programs aimed at balancing maps fill the pages than words, a “When fish rebound and are viable, water use and ecosystem health mere sampling of which is presented and when habitats are large enough such as CalFED got off the ground. in this article. In some cases, to be resilient, that’s when you have “That was a decisive time for the authors pulled together data more flexibility. So we need to boost determining our future, and we’re in from multiple sources to show the growth when conditions are wetter that kind of time again.” interactions between different parts and then design rules for droughts Even though the Bay Institute of the estuary and its watershed; in that take into account multi-year other cases they built on analyses impacts — instead of hammering the published From the Sierra to the Sea in from other well-respected sources resource in wet years and dry.” 1998, its authors contend that it is still and worked to place them in context the only effort to date to look at the Another conclusion — something or extend their scope. historical ecology of the entire system. of a surprise — was the lack of Bruce Herbold agrees. “It still sits on Pulling it all together, the authors obvious links between native and my shelf and it still drives the science come to a variety of conclusions. For exotic fish assemblages (see Figure D). and management of California’s one, they counter the argument that “We all know that the system is now aquatic resources,” says this former major improvements in flow have dominated by non-natives but the U.S. Environmental Protection resulted from the last three decades narrative that this is what has driven Agency biologist who spent decades of policy change. Actual fresh water the decline of native species over helping endangered fish up and flowing from the Sierra and Central the past two decades doesn’t pan downstream. “When I started working Valley rivers to the Bay and ocean out,” says Jon Rosenfield, the Bay in this field thirty years ago, one might is now so diminished that the driest Institute’s lead scientist. “As a group, have expected to see walls, or at least Bay inflow conditions, those that natives have held their own in the different colored ground, between would naturally occur 20 percent of ecosystem since the original report the Bay, the Delta, and each of the the time, now occur 70 percent of the was published.” tributary rivers. The divisions still time (see Figures A and B). Without exist, but as witnessed by the State significant flow reinstated to buoy Water Board’s recent controversial ecosystem processes and habitats, plan to regulate streamflows in order native fish are sure to collapse. to promote better conditions in the Estuary, people are now more likely to view the watershed as connected.” For any reviewer, the ups, Surface runoff in the Bay Estuary’s watershed is naturally variable but downs and slices of the bar and pie human water use and exports aren’t charts presented in the Afterword Figure B: An increasing fraction of surface water in the Bay’s watershed has been diverted of the 2018 From the Sierra to the Sea or exported over the last 20 years. In dry years, the inflexibility of water demands results in require time and reading glasses diversion of a large percentage of Central Valley runoff. In some years, more than two-thirds of to appreciate. “Reality is complex,” the winter-spring runoff is diverted from, or stored, upstream of the Estuary or exported South. writes Hart. “Yet complexity can also Summarized from 2018 Sierra to the Sea, p. 285. serve as a refuge, sparing CER E E ER E D B 90 us the job of distinguishing Bay Inflow Delta Exports Net In-Delta Diversions Net Diversions Upstream between more important 80 18 things and less important 70 things. The big thing 1 201 60 sometimes obscured by the length of the “multiple 50 stressor” list is the first 40 thing on it, the historic and (MAF) 30 ongoing reduction of flows

through the Delta and Bay. ER ME 20 The harm done by many of 10 [these stressors] dwindles 0 whenever flows are strong.” 1930 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010

2% 2% 18% 20% Bay Inflow Delta Exports 47% 16% 51% 15% San Joaquin Valley Diversions

13% Sacramento Valley Diversions 17% In-Delta Diversions 111 2002010

RE 2 BE EE RCE ER DER ER ME Bar chart: Central Valley runoff varies greatly from year to year; however, upstream diversions in the Sacramento and San Joaquin basins, Delta exports, and in-Delta diversions have remained relatively invariant or even increased slightly on average since the original publication of this report. During drier periods, the inflexibility of water demand results in diversion of a large percentage of the Valley’s runoff. As a result, actual runoff to San Francisco Bay has declined even further, to less than half of unimpaired runoff. Pie Charts: Water use is shown for periods reported in the 1998 and 2013 editions of the California Water Plan (which included normalizing the extremely wet year 1995). Data source: California Department of Water Resources (CDWR 2016, 2017, 2018) MD C

43% 83% 98%

San Joaquin Valley Sacramento Valley 11

2,000,000 But between 1998-2017, reverse flows 201 CREE of the same or larger magnitude 1,800,000 occurred on 485 days in summer, or an average of over three weeks per 1,600,000 year. “This shift in heavy exports to 20% the unprotected part of the year is Walnuts a change that may exacerbate toxic 1,400,000 algal blooms and other problems,” 13% CRE adds Reis. “Water managers and Pistachios 67% 1,200,000 regulators need to pay attention.” Almonds Severe Other conclusions relate to the drought 1,000,000 changes ahead not behind us — as global warming produces hotter temperatures, more extreme 800,000 2001 2005 2010 2015 2017 weather including flood events like Oroville, and rising sea levels that Acreage devoted to water intensive tree crops has exploded will inundate low-lying habitats. in the Central Valley As the Afterword notes, at RE CREE ERME CR CREE E CER E the time of From the Sierra to the Tree crops require irrigation throughout their lifespan,Figure regardless C: The area of prevailing planted with hydrological almonds, pistachios, conditions. and In walnuts recent decades,(which the acreage of Central Valley farmland devoted to tree crops,require particularly lifelong irrigation) nuts, has more exploded, than doubled especially between in the 2001 San and Joaquin, 2017. The where the Sea’s publication in 1998, estuary majority of nut crops are grown. From 2001 to 2017, largestacreage expansion devoted (2014-2015)to almonds, coincided walnuts, with and the pistachios recent period more of than severe doubled, managers recognized global increasing by over a million acres. The largest expansiondrought in acreage (red bars), devoted further to impactinggrowing nut overdrafted crops in groundwater2014-2015 coincided supplies and with the warming as an emerging accelerating subsidence. Summarized from 2018 Sierra to the Sea, p. 286. recent period of severe drought (red bars), further impacting overdrafted groundwater supplies and accelerating subsidence. Data environmental threat but little sources: California Department of Food and Agriculture and the Administrative Committee for Pistachios (CDFA 2017 & 2018, ACP 2018, imagined its pace and magnitude. What’s clear now, however, is that Another conclusion is that Another surprise emerged as the change will occur more rapidly than despite severe drought and depleted team cobbled together data from previously thought, with serious aquifers, the acreage of water multiple sources spanning 40 years: implications for ecosystems. intensive tree crops in the Central “The number of days of extreme Valley has exploded (see Figure C). reverse flows on my spread sheet continued on next page “It makes us realize we should be amazed me,” says Institute scientist careful what we wish for,” says Greg Reis. He found that in the record Bay Institute report co-author before 1998, reverse flows of -10,000 Peter Vorster. Vorster admits that cubic feet per second (cfs) only environmentalists have long argued occurred in summer on five days. that scarce snowmelt shouldn’tE be ECE CEE E ECE DE CE E DE used on low value crops like alfalfa. According to the Afterword,12001 acreage 120012002200 20022002008201 2008201 devoted Sacramentoto high value Splittail walnuts, SacramentoSacramento Splittail Splittail SacramentoSacramento Splittail Splittail Tule Perch Sacramento Splittail Tule Perch almonds, pistachios5% doubled 5%4% 4% 9% 1% 9% 1% 20% Sacramento Sucker 20%11% Sacramento Sucker 11% 18% Sacramento Sucker 18% between Sacramento2001-2017 Sucker – increasing by Sacramento Sucker Sacramento Sucker NATIVE 1% NATIVENATIVE 4% NATIVENATIVE 4% NATIVE 1% 1% 1% more than million acres — mostly in Sacramento Chinook Salmon Chinook Salmon Sacramento the groundwaterSacramento Pikeminnow — overdrafted San Sacramento Pikeminnow Pikeminnow 4% Golden Shiner 4% Golden ShinerBluegillPikeminnow Bluegill 1% Joaquin Valley. 1% 1% 1% 1% 1% 1% 1% Yellowfin Goby Yellowfin Goby Chinook Salmon Chinook Salmon Chinook Salmon Trees “harden” water demand — Chinook Salmon1% 1% 12% 12% 2% 2% most orchards have to be irrigated W. Mosquitofish W. W.Mosquitofish Mosquitofish W. Mosquitofish every yearYellowfin and can’t Goby be fallowed in Yellowfin 1%Goby 1%1% 1% 1% Inland 1% InlandInland InlandInland Inland times of drought or flood like field Threadfin Shad ThreadfinThreadfin Shad Shad Threadfin Shad Silverside SilversideSilverside SilversideSilverside Silverside crops. “NoThreadfin one wants Shad to dictate what 10% 10%3% 3% 54% Threadfin Shad 54%60% 60% 62% 62% 11% 11% Redear Sunfish Redear Sunfish crops people should grow but we have Red Shiner Red Shiner1% 1% to make choices about how much 15% 15% acreage to irrigateRed Shiner in order to live Red Shiner Red Shiner Red Shiner 12% 12% 11% within our water budgets,” says Peter Largemouth Bass 11% Largemouth Bass Vorster. “Otherwise, our already small 1% 1% water budgets for the ecosystem, and our newly mandated budgets for Non-natives continue to dominate the fish fauna, but on the whole, groundwater, will still be at risk.” they are not replacing natives Figure D: A comparison of proportional catch of non-native fish species (black and grey slices) and native fish species (colored slices) caught in the shallow waters of the Delta during the late 1990s and 2000s. While some non-native species increased and some native species decreased, there was no major change in the relative abundance of these two groups over this period. Summarized from the 2018 Sierra to the Sea, p. 291. 12 DECEMBER 2018 ESTUARY NEWS

“From the Sierra to the Sea really helped contaminant effects on the ecosystem. Where There’s validate the importance of big-picture More attention needs to be paid studies of landscape change, opening to these ecosystem processes, the A Will, There’s the door for more granular analyses Afterword finds, despite the gains like our Delta work,” says the made with the addition of hundreds Way More Fish organization’s senior scientist Robin of acres and miles of restoration Grossinger. projects up and downstream in A Window for Real Restoration The new edition’s Afterword the last 20 years — from gravel restates an obvious conclusion that augmentation in tributaries to levee Even as early as the 1998 can now be found in a plethora of setbacks and floodplain expansion in edition, the Bay Institute and all scientific and technical documents Central Valley rivers to wetland and those who contributed to the first and management plans, if not political creek restoration around the Bay. From the Sierra to the Sea report were platforms, namely the need to These include one of the largest and recommending landscape scale recognize and support processes not most ambitious projects championed restoration efforts including support just places. And that’s where water by the Bay Institute — restoring fresh for ecosystem processes such as comes in again: “What binds together water and salmon to 150 miles of the sediment movement. This early work any network of pre-existing or restored San Joaquin River, once dry down stimulated a number of further, more habitat reserves in this system is to the sandy river bottom due to detailed, ecological histories and fresh water,” says the Afterword. This “impaired” flows. recommendations. The San Francisco water mobilizes sediments to create Landscape managers are now Estuary Institute, for example, went and maintain physical habitats like concerned that all this work to grow on to produce a triumvirate of detailed marshes and beaches; creates low species and habitats will be undone, studies that are now the foundation salinity habitat when it mixes with or produce different outcomes, as air of Delta conservation management salt water from ocean; transports and water temperatures rise and the recommendations (Delta Historical organisms, nutrients and prey between ocean advances upstream. Recent Ecology, Delta Transformed, Delta habitats; cues migratory behavior in fires, floods and drought have already Renewed). salmon and other species; and limits galvanized the public to consider more ways to support natural resilience. The political will to really Public investment in wetland restoration may not produce desired results reshape land use practices, however, without adequate sediment inputs from Central Valley rivers. remains weak, as have commitments Figure E (map): Completed and in progress non-mitigation restoration projects from the 2018 of more flows to fish. EcoAtlas. Figure F (bird charts): Projected habitat availability for two wetland-dependent bird species under two difference scenarios of climate change. Blue lines depict the proportional “Governor Schwarzenegger’s change in bird density based upon estimated future habitat extent under high rates of sea Delta Vision task force did a great job level rise (1.65 m) and low sedimentation rates (25 mg/L suspended sediment concentration); of highlighting all these emerging red lines reflect low rates of sea level rise (0.52 m) and high sedimentation rates (300 mg/L). threats and how we needed to Increases in river flows influence salinity and sedimentation rates (as well as the species, reconnect and rehabilitate parts of growth and bulk of wetland plants), sustaining habitats as sea levels rise. Modified from the estuary. Then we got sidetracked. original image by Veloz et al. 2013. Summarized from 2018 Sierra to the Sea, pp. 296-7. Governor Brown fixated on delta conveyance rather than larger water management changes and California lost a precious decade when we could have been addressing the root causes of the Estuary’s decline,” says Bobker. “Now is the time to do the rest of the restoration, to add the critical element of water, if we want our investments to pay off,” says Rosenfield. “Building resilience doesn’t require us to stop all human use of California’s water, just to do a better RD R MR RE job of sharing it,” says Bobker. 150 Scenario San Francisco Sed High/SLR Low 100 PERCENTAGE CHANGE DEEPER DIVE Sed Low/SLR High 50 www .sfestuary .org/estuary-news- reflowing-sierra-to-sea/ 0 10km 10mi N -50 Completed In-progress -100 Projects with the Bay Institute 2030 2070 2110 2030 2070 2110 involvement 13

COAST-TO-COAST Estuary Partners Choose Their Battles

JOHN HART, REPORTER Some of these National Estuary Sahandy hopes that the current On an early October day, an Program target areas are urban, crisis will shake loose funds. “It’s unusual crowd of tourists filed some rural. Some are vast, some not that we don’t know what to do,” onto the Red & White Fleet’s Harbor quite contained. Certain estuaries, she says, “but in the last three years, Queen, paying rather less attention to like ours, are feeling the effects only 30 percent of planned actions Alcatraz and the Golden Gate than to of prolonged artificial drought as could be carried out. I don’t want each other. In town for the National freshwater inflows are diverted to be managing decline,” she adds. Estuary Program’s annual Tech for consumptive use. In others, “I want to find out how to turn the Transfer Conference, they had come water quality, not quantity, is the dial toward actual improvement.” to compare notes and strategies from worry. Some have too much input of Ultimately that depends on the 28 varied bays, bights, bayous, sediment and nutrients, while others confronting climate change and and river mouths that benefit from struggle with unnatural shortage, managing galloping regional growth. one of the nation’s most durable, and as is the case in San Francisco Bay. efficient, environmental laws. Some estuary groups are riveted by one big problem — an iconic species In 1987 amendments to the Clean in trouble, for example. Others, like Water Act, Congress proclaimed ours, comb out priorities from a mat selected tidewater regions to be of interlocking issues. “estuaries of national significance” and offered money to help local coalitions “Our world right now is seen take on environmental problems there. through the lens of the orca,” says Through all the political gyrations Sheida Shahandy of the Puget Sound since, a thin stream of funding, via Partnership. Dwindling numbers the Environmental Protection Agency, of the charismatic whale in this Orca sighting on 12/3/18, Iceberg Point, Pacific has continued to flow to place-based region have made national news. Ocean offshore of Puget Sound. programs with tiny core staffs and What’s doing the animals in, most Photo: Mark Malleson numerous collaborating partners. obviously, is starvation: their decline These doughty groups have helped tracks that of their prey species, the The Tillamook Estuaries work wonders in habitat restoration Chinook salmon. In this busy harbor Partnership in northwest Oregon and pollution cleanup, learning many and industrial region, food shortage covers the namesake bay and several a lesson along the way. The yearly is compounded by pollutants that others formed where rivers pool conference, hosted this time by the San build up in the animals’ fat; drawing behind coastal dunes. Director Kristi Francisco Estuary Partnership, ensures on these reserves, hungry whales Foster is celebrating a huge recent that that knowledge gets shared. poison themselves. Swarming ships success: the restoration of 443 acres and whale-watching boats also of tidal wetlands at the mouth of Listening in on the conversations harass the pods. the Tillamook River, essential for aboard the Harbor Queen, I really “got” Sahandy sits on a governor’s habitat and to reduce destructive how different other estuaries are emergency task force that has just local flooding. Seventeen years in the from our familiar Bay and Delta, endorsed cuts in salmon harvest, making, this Southern Flow Corridor and how smart Congress was to a boost in hatchery output, and a project is one of the largest and most pursue national environmental goals temporary outright ban on Southern complex restorations in the Pacific through programs developed in, and Resident Orca viewing tours. Lined Northwest. “It’s a showcase for all of for, one special region at a time. up behind these are steps that could Tillamook County,” Foster says. have been taken straight from the It’s a very different constellation Partnership’s of problems around Corpus Christi, 2016 Action Texas, where the Coastal Bend Bays Agenda: an & Estuaries Program is at work. As attack on in California, lowered freshwater pollution, input is a key factor. However, the notably from main competitor for water in this stormwater case is not agriculture — there is runoff; faster little crop irrigation here — or even work to restore residential use in a slowly growing salmon habitat region. It is rather the massive statewide; petrochemical industry. A 2001 and long-term agreement called for releases down controls on the Nueces River mimicking, at a maritime noise reduced level, the irregular pattern and harassment. continued on next page Estuary partnerships coast to coast. 14 DECEMBER 2018 ESTUARY NEWS of natural flows to Corpus Christi complicating wetland restoration problem of sediment starvation. In New Bay. If not sufficient to restore the work. The idea of bringing back Hampshire’s Great Bay, by contrast, habitats that were, this solution oyster beds is popular, but scientists mud is all too plentiful; dislodged by promises to maintain what is. “We are just beginning to understand how upstream development and harsher are dealing with a remnant of what to bring these efforts to scale. storms, it smothers valuable oyster was here naturally,” says director beds. All three states worry about the Ray Allen. “We have to actively decline of eelgrass stands, now at a manage for that.” fraction of historic levels. Tides are muted on this coast, but Asked “what keeps you awake sea-level rise is being subtly felt. In at night,” Rachel Roulliard of a reversal of the California situation, Piscatacqua thought for a while rising Texas waters tend to expand and volunteered, “Honestly, it’s the marsh band, not erode it, as coordination.” It’s a perennial vegetation colonizes the hypersaline challenge everywhere. Estuary flats that lie upslope. One kind partnerships work by persuasion and of habitat is replaced by another. education, not by exercising direct Outside its vulnerable urban cores, regulatory power. this region is fairly well positioned Every partnership, it seems, to adapt to an encroaching Gulf. NEP national meeting cruise on San Francisco Bay. Photo: Peter Beeler is feeling the need to widen Large ranches will make room for focus beyond the classically the waves, if only because acre-by- “environmental.” Many are acre defense would be too expensive. For metro dwellers to appreciate underlining the economic benefits “Thank God for the big landowners,” their estuary, they must be able to of what they do, and several are says Allen. reach it. A number of waterfront reaching out to urban groups that Sarasota Bay, a fifty-mile-long parks have been created of late in have too often been left out of the lagoon on the southwest coast of the region, but access alone isn’t conversation: the disadvantaged Florida, is fairly new to the ranks of enough, says director Rob Pirani. communities that have suffered most estuaries, having naturally lacked the “Activities must be designed to draw from past decisions and stand to be freshwater input to qualify as one. people who may think, ‘That place hardest hit by future changes like In modern times, though, the bay is not really for us.’” And the very sea-level rise. The San Francisco acquired tributaries of a sort due to success of the cleanup effort can Estuary Partnership’s Caitlin Sweeney stream reengineering, urban storm push housing prices out of reach sees an analogy with the “legacy” runoff, and wastewater outfalls. of “the people who lived with the pollutants that lie in bottom muds: With more water from the land came degradation all this time,” Pirani “Our estuaries have also inherited a nitrogen and other nutrients, tending notes. “Can improvement be done legacy of environmental injustice.” to overfertilize the bay. Among other in a manner that doesn’t jeopardize Both must be confronted now. these communities?” accomplishments, the Sarasota Bay Amid the smiles and professional Estuary Partnership has succeeded in I sat in on a kind of New England optimism aboard the Harbor Queen, a reducing nitrogen inflow by two thirds. symposium with staff from MassBays certain grimness was apparent in (the Massachusetts Bays National But these days all local efforts this crowd. Like the god of Old Norse Estuary Program); the Piscataqua seem overwhelmed by the legend who tried to drain a drinking Region Estuaries Partnership (centered devastating regional red tide, an horn connected to the sea, our estuary on the New Hampshire coast); and overgrowth of the toxic alga Karenia advocates are fighting the local the Casco Bay Estuary Partnership brevis. While the affliction follows expression of changes on a planetary (Portland, Maine). All three face a natural cycles, director David Mark scale — changes that, even in the best challenge peculiar to their corner Alderson suspects that continued scenario, have only begun to be felt. of the world. For reasons not well cleanup could lessen future pain. The task is to repair and strengthen understood, relative sea-level rise is “We’ve done a lot of really good work estuarine ecosystems — now — greater in the northeastern US than on reducing nutrient pollution along against unstoppable disturbances to anywhere else on the planet, and this coast, but it may not be enough.” come. “Just make sure the system is stands to happen sooner. While the A new initiative along the bay seeks as healthy as you can make it,” says more typical coastline, like ours, has to naturalize streams and shorelines, Curtis Bohlen of the Casco Bay Estuary some three decades left to prepare for creating additional nutrient uptake Partnership. “That’s all we can do.” the steeper phase of rise, the future in and improving habitat for fish. New England is now. “Where will the CONTACT The New York-New Jersey Harbor marshes go?” wonders Pam DiBona [email protected] & Estuary Program oversees one of MassBays. In her region, urban of the nation’s most urbanized and development often blocks the way. On DEEPER DIVE: polluted meetings of river and sea. up into Maine, rural river valleys have www .sfestuary .org/estuary-news- It is also unusual in straddling two more room for rising tides, with such national-neps-cruise states; the nonprofit Hudson River obstacles as roads, minor development, Foundation provides the needed and a lack of public lands. framework. Pollution is down in The Great Marsh of Massachusetts, recent decades, but vast stocks the region’s largest, has the added of poison lurk in bottom muds, 15

CLIMATE Hauling Out on Higher Ground

ASHLEIGH PAPP, REPORTER of the Bay is projected to change as waters found in tidal marsh areas For centuries, the harbor seal sea levels rise, haul-out sites for make these haul-outs particularly has thrived in the waters of the harbor seals, most often low-lying attractive during pupping season and San Francisco Bay. The Pacific rocks and marshes, are increasingly thus invaluable to preserve. herring and salmon available during threatened. What will happen to seal spawning seasons represent an populations as their vital habitat alluring feast, but it’s the 20 or so changes or disappears entirely? resting places sprinkled around the Rocky islets like the Castro Rocks, Bay that offer a perfect year-round located near the Richmond-San home to the region’s sole resident Rafael Bridge and among the Bay’s marine mammal. The availability more popular haul-out sites, are and location of these onshore and a particularly important refuge. island “haul-out” sites could change Representing about half of the total dramatically with sea-level rise, haul-outs available to seals in the however. Bay, they offer less risk of human National Park Service ecologist disturbance and quick access to Seals at Mowry Slough. Photo: Lyman Fancher Sarah Allen has been studying local schooling fish below. As the tide harbor seals for decades. “They shifts from high to low, more of the Rachel Tertes, a U.S. Fish and have this dual existence,” says Allen, rock is exposed and the seals hoist Wildlife Service biologist at the Don who serves as science program lead themselves up onto the surface. Edwards San Francisco Bay National for the park service’s Pacific West “It’s quite entertaining to watch,” Wildlife Refuge, is monitoring a Region. “They’re tied to the land says Tori Seher, a National Park nearly complete restoration effort at physiologically and tied to the bay Service biologist whose office is Redwood City’s Bair Island geared waters for food and travel, but they based on Alcatraz Island. “Some of in part toward seal habitat. “We’re have to follow the tidal cycles of the the seals have it down: they time it working to restore tidal marsh areas water because that’s when the haul- perfectly and the wave pushes them now, before the pace of sea-level rise out spaces become available.” From up onto the rock and they land in increases, so that tidal marsh can rocky islets to tidal marshes, the the right place. Others, usually the keep up with rising water,” she says. bay shoreline offers respite to these smaller ones, take a while to get up To get ahead they’ve restored native marine mammals — not only onto a rock that doesn’t have another diked farmland and salt ponds back to rest and molt, but also to breed harbor seal already on it.” to tidal marsh and re-leveled it and raise their young. Due to the very nature of these with future tides in mind. Tertes is “Harbor seals are amazingly rocky haul-out habitats, little can be optimistic about harbor seals’ future resilient to changes in their habitat,” done to protect or preserve them as there. “The South Bay numbers Allen says. “Nevertheless, they sea levels rise. Of the rocky haul out- have been staying high,” she says. require resting places onshore where areas that currently exist throughout “Not only have they been using they feel safe.” But as the landscape the Bay, more than half are likely the historic haul-out sites, but to be erased we’re seeing them explore the new this century. channels throughout the recently “Eventually restored Bair Island.” [the seals] will To Allen, the next chapter for lose this habitat this resilient marine mammal because it’s fixed. looks similarly hopeful. “While the When the sea level remote rocky islands may be lost rises the smaller, to seals with sea-level rise, newly little rocky islets created intertidal marshes may help will blink out,” to accommodate the loss of rocky Allen says. habitats in the Bay,” she explains. “If Meanwhile, we protect spaces along the shore, the ability of tidal seals in the Bay may not only adapt marsh habitats to the changes but even expand.” to naturally CONTACT [email protected]; respond to rising [email protected]; seas offers hope [email protected] to concerned researchers in the Female with pup at Castro Rocks. Photo: Suzanne Manugian field. The gentler slopes and calmer 16 DECEMBER 2018 ESTUARY NEWS RESTORATION Greening Dickson’s Heights JACOBA CHARLES, REPORTER instead of an intermittently Looking east from the levee-top submerged mudflat, there trail, a silvery swath of bay is dotted would simply be an extension with low islands — some tufted with of San Pablo Bay. plants, others mere muddy humps But how could nearly that barely break the surface. 1,000 acres — more than 700 This is low tide at the nearly 1,000- football fields — be raised acre Sears Point wetland restoration by six feet in elevation? project on the western side of San The mounds were part of Pablo Bay. The islands, 500 in all, the solution. They would are actually man-made mounds, not only provide immediate scattered across the mudflat as patches of marsh, but also an integral part of the restoration help dissipate wave and tidal design. Each is roughly 60 feet energy and settle sediment before being exposed to Bay waters, across and was carefully sculpted already in Bay waters to the bottom. says ecologist Peter Baye, who so its wide, flat top would submerge Though mounds can be seen as a helped develop the design. The plan at high tide, creating habitat for a feature in other restoration projects called for them to be left in place for specific group of marsh plants. This in the Bay Area, they have previously up to five years, protected by the old in turn provides an important suite been installed as high-tide refuges. bayside levee and a vast new, inland of ecological functions central to the Sears Point was the first project, and levee constructed as part of the same project’s success. is still the only example, aiming to project. This would have allowed “Without the mounds, you would influence ecosystem-level process mature root and plant growth to just have a big area of open water,” such as sedimentation. stabilize both the mounds and the new says Julian Meisler, a program Originally the raw earthen mounds, levee before being exposed to buffeting manager with Sonoma Land Trust. constructed with bulldozers in 2014, by waves and tides from the Bay. The organization once owned and now were intended to revegetate naturally continued to back page oversees monitoring of the property, which was recently added to the San Pablo Bay National Wildlife Refuge and renamed the Dickson Unit. “We are eagerly watching the success of the vegetation on the mounds.” A few years ago, that success appeared to be in jeopardy. After project managers breached the levee separating the restoration site from San Pablo Bay in October 2015, the mounds eroded much more than expected. However, researchers later found that experimental plantings of native Pacific cordgrass stabilized the mounds. San Francisco State University graduate student Margot Buchbinder carried out the experiments in collaboration with staff from the Sonoma Land Trust and the nonprofit Invasive Spartina Project. “The timeline on these projects is really decades,” says Meisler. As with many bayside properties throughout the region, a levee kept the restoration site’s soils dry for more than a century. While farmers worked the former marshland, it subsided about six feet — too low for tidal marsh to grow after a simple levee breach. Marsh mounds at Sears Point (pre-breach, so the water is stormwater, not saltwater). The waters would be too deep, and Photo: Stephen Joseph, courtesy Sonoma Land Trust. Above: Margot Buchbinder collects samples. 17

FINANCE Calculating the Cost of Adaptation ISAAC PEARLMAN, REPORTER by 2020,” says Brown. “That’s the challenge, has been thinking lately Two decades ago, the San United Nations’ target to finance about the cost of protecting the Bay Francisco Public Utilities Commission the low-carbon economy transition Area from sea-level rise. Assuming (SFPUC) faced a rather big problem: and meet the 1.5- to 2-degree limit $175 million per linear mile of levee its massive and aging water network, outlined in the Paris Agreement.” (about what the Hamilton Wetlands spanning the Sierra foothills to the Brown notes that although the restoration project in Novato cost), Pacific Ocean, was in dire need of a SFPUC’s first green bonds didn’t and that half of the San Francisco makeover. The Hetch Hetchy water receive any pricing benefits from Bay, or 200 miles, will need a levee system crosses three major faults municipal bond investors in the form or seawall for protection, Norcross and needed seismic retrofitting. The of lower interest rates, a recent $300 gets a total of $35 billion — which he city’s 100-year-old combined sewer million taxable green bond issued calls “definitely low.” and stormwater pipes faced major by the agency did. Another benefit “A $35 billion bond issue secured repairs and upgrades. And the SFPUC is the significant publicity received by a tax on all two million parcels needed billions of dollars to do it all. by the SFPUC. “We’ve expanded in the nine-county Bay Area would So the commission did what our investor base and have been equal $1,100 per household per year many municipalities facing hefty recognized as one of the leaders in for 30 years,” he says, adding that infrastructure pricetags do: issue this area,” Brown says. for planning purposes a better target bonds, to the tune of $4.8 billion. But But can green bonds finance the might be $50 billion. in order to finance a subset of these Bay Area’s massive sea-level-rise Northcross acknowledges it’s a projects, the SFPUC did something bill, or is it only a drop in the ocean? very rough estimate. But the point new. It went green. Mark Northcross, a principal at is the Bay Area is going to need a “Green bonds provide a great NHA Advisors and financial advisor lot of money — and that creative way to finance climate adaptation for the recent Resilient by Design funding sources are needed. “Green and mitigation projects, but they are bonds are great for projects that like any other bond,” explains Mike have already passed the years-long Brown, the SFPUC environmental pre-planning and CEQA process,” he finance manager who oversees the says. “But we need grants to fund $1.4 billion in green bonds that the projects through this early, high-risk commission has issued since 2015. phase.” So what makes a bond green? To Brown, however, the rise When the debt is issued specifically of green bonds presents a larger to bankroll projects with tangible opportunity. “The municipal bond environmental benefits, such as market is massive — about $400 a new pump station that reduces billion dollars annually,” he says. energy use, public transportation “But think about all the projects projects cutting carbon emissions, that municipalities finance: electric or even rain gardens to capture rail, water projects, wastewater and treat stormwater. By being treatment — maybe 75 percent or labeled or certified as green, these more could be labeled green. I want bonds appeal to so-called impact to get to the point where every dollar or “ESG” (environmental, social, of debt issued is green.” and governance) investors seeking And if the market for green bonds a larger societal benefit to their grows the way he expects, it soon investment — in addition to their may pay to go green. personal profit, of course. CONTACT [email protected]; Certification costs and increased [email protected] reporting requirements can be barriers for issuing green bonds, but Rain garden in San Francisco’s Mission Brown and the SFPUC are banking District funded by an SFPUC green bond. In on that changing. That’s because November 2018, Los Angeles County approved the green bond market is currently another innovative financing mechanism: Measure W. Starting in 2019, property owners exploding, going from essentially will pay 2.5 cents for each square foot of zero when the first green bond was impermeable surface on their parcels. The tax issued in 2007 to about $170 billion will raise an estimated $300 million per year delivered globally in 2017. to fund rain gardens, parks, and watershed “The goal is to get to $1 trillion restoration designed to capture and clean the in annual green bond issuances precious rainwater running off the county’s concrete and asphalt surfaces. Photo: SFPUC 18 DECEMBER 2018 ESTUARY NEWS

INDUSTRY citizen comments. Fresh Air Vallejo, an organization of which Brooks is now president, grew out of that effort. Its current supporters include not Green Cement Blues just environmental nonprofits and JOE EATON, REPORTER Environmental Protection Agency, environmental-justice advocates have extremely high rates of asthma but also unions, civil-rights groups, For the last three years, an businesses, and student organizations. environmental storm has been and cardiovascular disease and a brewing in the North Bay city of high incidence of low-weight births. The group found disturbing anomalies in the EIR’s air quality Vallejo. An Irish cement company Enter Orcem, the Texas- analysis. Jay Gunkelman, formerly and its local partners want to build based subsidiary of “green- with the Bay Area Air Quality a processing plant and a marine cement” manufacturer Ecocem, Management District (BAAQMD), terminal at the site of a long-closed headquartered in Dublin with flour mill on the east bank of the says the report’s emissions analysis operations in Ireland, France, and inappropriately applied rural Napa River. But a broad spectrum the Netherlands. On a web page of community groups has come monitoring methodology to an describing the Vallejo project, Orcem urban setting, and understated the together as Fresh Air Vallejo to claims its process involves a “near- oppose the project. impact of cement dust releases and zero carbon dioxide footprint” and the emission of carcinogenic and otherwise toxic chemicals. Earlier this year, BAAQMD advised the city of 17 areas of concern with the project’s Health Risk Analysis, including data discrepancies and failure to identify specific emissions sources. Other concerns raised by Fresh Air Vallejo include almost round-the-clock truck traffic, continuous lighting at the plant, and the potential that the marine terminal could be used to handle coal shipments. The historic Sperry Mill on the Napa River and proposed site of the Vallejo Marine Terminal and Backing the Orcem venture is cement plant. Photo: Omnific Pictures/TJ Walkup, from Riverfront Ruckus & White Washed Tombs the Mare Island Straits Economic film in production. Development Committee, chaired by city council member Jess Malgapo Citing concerns over air quality zero mercury emissions as well as up and aligned with the JumpStart and other impacts, the Vallejo to 80 percent fewer emissions of air Vallejo Political Action Committee. Planning Commission rejected the pollutants such as nitrogen and sulfur According to the Vallejo Times-Herald, applicants’ permit in 2017, a decision oxides compared with “traditional” Orcem and its partners have that the cement company appealed. cement production methods. contributed to the JumpStart PAC, City Council members postponed funding the campaigns of Malgapo At Vallejo, the Orcem plant would action on the appeal pending and fellow council members Pippin use granulated blast furnace slag, completion of what the city calls a Dew, Hermie Sunga, and Rozzana a waste product from iron and steel Draft Final Environmental Impact Verder-Aliga in 2016 and 2018. The Report (EIR). Then on November mills, to produce cement. The slag four of them made up the majority 7, the state Department of Justice and other cement ingredients would that voted in 2017 to override the weighed in with a scathing analysis be unloaded at the new terminal. Planning Commission’s rejection of of the deficiencies of the EIR, as well Orcem would take over the site of the the companies’ permit applications. Sperry flour mill, operated by General as the Environmental Justice and With recent elections, however, Air Quality analyses prepared for the Mills until 1992 and subsequently designated a city and state historic the make up of the City Council project. This reset the clock for the has changed. But before the new city’s next action. landmark. Despite that status, the existing mill structures, where Council had a chance to meet, the Vallejo already bears a heavy ospreys — formerly endangered birds Department of Justice issued a pollution burden. The former making a recent comeback in the 13-page letter signed by Deputy Attorney General Erin Ganahl, Mare Island Naval shipyard is a area — have nested in recent years, warning of potential violations of the Superfund site, and the city lies in would be demolished. the middle of the refinery corridor California Environmental Quality Act. that extends from Richmond to Peter Brooks says he first became The document, citing a report from Martinez and Benicia. South Vallejo, aware of the plans when a draft EIR independent air quality analyst Camille where the plant and proposed for the project appeared on the city’s Sears that focused on emissions from Vallejo Marine Terminal would web site in the fall of 2015. He and vessels using the marine terminal, be located, is a predominantly allies pressured the city to schedule stated that the EIR “fails to adequately African-American community whose additional public meetings on the disclose, analyze, and mitigate the residents, according to the California EIR and helped generate a deluge of significant environmental impacts of 19

Some agricultural interests, on WETLANDWATCH the other hand, would prefer that the state definition mirror the one used by the Army Corps of Engineers. “You State Could Step Up might have a property where the Corps does not consider a wetland to be CARIAD HAYES THRONSON, REPORTER [exist] for our few remaining present but the Water Board does,” California environmentalists hope wetlands.” As landscapes where both says Kari Fisher of the California Farm to see an end to the years-long wait aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems Bureau Federation, one of more than for a state wetlands protection policy overlap, wetlands support complex two dozen ag-industry associations in early 2019. Despite an official policy communities of plants and animals. that also submitted a joint comment that calls for “no net loss” of wetlands They also trap carbon, filter pollution, letter on the 2017 draft. “That creates in place since 1992, the lack of a absorb runoff, and buffer surrounding conflicting procedures, alternatives specific wetlands definition, along with areas from flooding. analysis, and mitigation analysis a patchwork of mitigation procedures, The Trump administration’s that a landowner would have to do to has led to the loss of many thousands rollback of the Waters of the U.S. comply. Those are not simple or easy of acres of ecologically important (WOTUS) rule has given new urgency processes to begin with, and if you’re lands. As the Trump administration to the matter. Adopted by the Obama going to have to do differing ones moves to roll back federal wetland administration in 2015, WOTUS depending on different definitions, that protections, some environmentalists established a broad definition of lands just adds time and money.” believe the new state policy may soon entitled to wetland protections under Both the environmental and be all that stands between many of the Clean Water Act. The current agricultural letters raised concerns California’s remaining wetlands and administration is working to repeal the about the treatment of previously destruction. rule. converted croplands under the The State Water Resources Control If successful, it’s likely to replace policy. Fisher says the Federation is Board’s new policy, given the wordy the rule with something that restricts concerned about differences between title State Wetland Definition and federal jurisdiction and is much less the state and federal definition of these Procedures for Discharges of Dredged protective of a variety of wetland lands, and has suggested language or Fill Material to Waters of the State, types that occur in California, changes that would match that has been in the works since 2008, Zwillinger says. “By enacting this used by the Army Corps. Zwillinger, and has undergone several drafts and policy, California can protect all of however, worries that the draft’s rounds of public comment. However, its wetlands, including the ones that guidance might allow for incremental enviros like Defenders of Wildlife’s would lose protections otherwise changes that would eventually lead to Rachel Zwillinger are optimistic that because of the federal rollback.” such land being converted to urban uses. the next release will be similar enough The 2017 document uses a modified to the draft released last year that it three-parameter definition of wetlands Despite reservations, Zwillinger can move quickly toward adoption by that provides more chances to protect describes the current draft as “a very the state board early in 2019. them than the federal definition, and necessary step in the right direction.” If the next version of the plan does also safeguards unvegetated areas CONTACT resemble the prior one, Zwillinger such as playas and tidal flats. A fall [email protected]; says there will be a lot to like in it. 2017 comment letter to the state board [email protected] “It’s an essential regulatory element from 11 environmental organizations for efforts to achieve the no-net-loss including Save the Bay, the Center for Draft Policy: policy,” she says. “It creates statewide Biological Diversity, and Defenders www.waterboards.ca.gov/water_ clarity about which landscape features of Wildlife described this as an issues/programs/cwa401/docs/ are wetlands entitled to protection improvement over previous definitions, official_Doc_timeline/procedures_ under state law, and a uniform set while continuing to recommend an clean.pdf of procedures [for] first avoiding, even more protective one-parameter then minimizing, then mitigating definition. impacts so really rigorous protections the project.” Ganahl also wrote that initial letter, adds that “it’s very Conservation and Development the Environmental Justice Analysis encouraging to have fresh eyes on Commission, and likely other state also fell short of the mark: “Where a the situation.” Although not legally and federal agencies. project’s impact area plainly has a high binding, the letter prompted a swift CONTACT [email protected] proportion of minority residents—in reaction from city manager Greg this case roughly 76% minority—it Nyhoff, who delayed the release of strains logic to state that there is not the EIR until January. DEEPER DIVE: www .sfestuary . a minority community that will be org/estuary-news-green-cement- With the ball back in the city’s vallejo/ disproportionately impacted.”. court, Brooks and Fresh Air Vallejo Brooks, who says Fresh Air are looking at the long game. Beyond Vallejo had not engaged with the the city, the project would be subject Department of Justice beyond an to review by the BAAQMD, the Bay San Francisco Estuary Partnership 375 Beale Street, Suite 700 San Francisco, California 94105 PRESORTED STANDARD San Francisco Bay and the Sacramento-San Joaquin River U.S. POSTAGE Delta comprise one of 28 “estuaries of national significance” P A I D recognized in the federal Clean Water Act. The San Francisco Oakland, CA www.sfestuary.org Estuary Partnership, a National Permit No . 2508 Estuary Program, is partially funded by annual appropriations from Congress. The Partnership’s mandate is to protect, restore, and enhance water quality and habitat in the Estuary. To accomplish this, the Partnership brings together resource agencies, non-profits, citizens, and scientists committed to the long-term health and preservation of this invaluable public resource. Our staff manages or oversees more than 50 projects ranging from supporting research into key water quality concerns to managing initiatives that prevent pollution, restore wetlands, or protect against the changes anticipated from climate change in our region. We have published Estuary News since 1993. ESTUARY News DECEMBER 2018, Vol . 27, No . 4

GUEST EDITOR Nate Seltenrich MANAGING EDITOR Ariel Rubissow Okamoto PEARLS EDITOR Cariad Hayes Thronson CONTRIBUTING Michael Hunter Adamson EDITOR DESIGN Darren Campeau

COVER IMAGE: White Sturgeon from UC Davis lab (see p. 6). Photo: Joel Sartore, Photo Ark / NG Image Collection

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GREENING, cont’d from page 16 native species suited to the lowest or most inundated marshland. Since “The theory was that those first Buchbinder’s first round of plantings plants would have essentially been coincided with the most rapid period sacrificial,” Meisler says. “Once the of erosion, many plots did not have a levee breached, the salt water would chance to take root. But she replanted kill them — but the roots would hold that fall, and erosion of all the mounds the mounds in place, and the dead slowed. By 2017, planted mounds — 18 vegetation would act as a comb, pulling in all — had stopped their rapid erosion. sediment out of the water.” Some have since regained elevation. However, that theory was never put “I don’t want to imply that the plants to the test. Time limits on funding meant are responsible for stopping all the the project needed to be completed erosion,” Buchbinder says. “The massive sooner, and didn’t allow the years erosion stopped on its own — but [while] necessary for the mounds to lie fallow or the control mounds continued to erode, grow vegetation, Meisler says. In the first the Spartina mounds were stabilized.” year post-breach, the mounds lost an Photo: Robin Meadows average of 1.5 feet in elevation. And that stabilization means the mounds will stay in place for the future, While about one-third of that loss ForCan the extended you online make version ofup where they can do the good work of this story, go to XXXXXXXX XXXXXXX resulted from subsidence of the trapping sediment. Already the Bay mounds under their own weight, it floor within the Dickson Unit has gained the DIFF? was still far greater than expected. an average of three feet of new mud, ESTUARY needs new partners “The wave erosion of the mounds was according to Vasey. 5 extreme after the breach, especially willing to invest $10K per year! during the spring of 2016,” says Mike CONTACT [email protected]; Vasey, director of the San Francisco [email protected] Help us keep reporting on the Bay National Estuarine Research centerpiece ecosystem of our region, Reserve, a partner on the project. DEEPER DIVE: www .sfestuary .org/ and all your efforts to make it estuary-news-dickson-mounds- more resilient. Triage for the mounds began that erosion-research/ spring, when Buchbinder installed Contact: Ariel Okamoto experimental plots of Pacific cordgrass, [email protected] Spartina foliosa, which is the only