ESTUARY 1 SCIENCE • RESTORATION • WATERSHED • POLITICS SPECIES BAY • WATERSHED SCIENCE • RESTORATION San Francisco Estuary Partnership Promising Results from an Experimental Wedge of Grass, Mud, and Wastewater Whether It’s Wet or Dry this Winter Planners Still Prep for Floods Shells as Camouflage for Nests? Voracious Snails and Weevils in the Delta: Good and Bad Biology Quelling Erosion Worries about Rain on the Burn Intermittent Diablo Range Creek Rich in Biodiversity Public Sediment Favors Mud NE WS DECEMBER 2017 VOL. 26, NO. 4 Bair Island . 2 Oro Loma . .. 3 One Water . 5 Post Fire Water Quality . 7 Profile Hopper . 8 Plover Predators . 12 Coyote Creek . 13 RMP PFASs . 15 Salmon Curtains . 16 Designing with Mud . 18 2 DECEMBER 2017 ESTUARY NEWS RESTORATION space constraints, restorationists are making their best efforts to mimic transition zones with good site plan- ning and careful earthwork. Minding the Margins But it’s not all about soils and salin- David Thomson, the Habitats transition zones were broad and ity. The plants covering the newly built Program director for the San Fran- gradually sloping. Nearly all of these transition zones are also crucial to their cisco Bay Bird Observatory, studies historic zones have been developed, overall health and function. Without transition zones between marsh and filled, put behind a levee, or otherwise the right combinations of cover, it just upland. The habitat is crucial for a impacted. “If you want to see a less becomes weed-filled slope and can’t properly functioning estuary, mainly impacted landscape you have to go to provide the ecological benefits for tidal because of the coverage and forage it Suisun Bay,” Thomson says. “A couple marsh animal communities. Over the can provide endangered and sensi- of researchers from UC Davis call past several years, Thomson’s SFBBO tive species looking to escape high those sites unicorns.” Habitats Program and a number of tide events. Intact transition zones partnering agencies have worked to Another reason that studying figure out how to best bring transition also help future-proofArbitrary Target = the 50% estuary by marsh-upland transition zones is tricky zones back to life. “We have seeded over giving marsh plant and animal com- is because they have also been poorly 30 species of local native plants, and munities the opportunity to migrate defined, both in terms of vocabulary enhanced them with up to 10 species of landward as the sea level rises. and by maps and modeling (see new natives grown in containers for out- But really understanding how the report link below). Often characterized planting, because not everything does marsh to upland transition zones by biologists or ecologists by chang- well from seed,” Thomson says about function in San Francisco Bay is chal- ing plant communities, marsh-upland the Bair Island and Pond A17 sites. lenging. Historically, marsh-upland transition zones are actually physical structures that, according Meanwhile, planning documents to Thomson, should be about marsh-upland transition zones MIGRATION SPACE - % OF TOTAL defined in relation to high are catching up with what ecologists 100% tide events. Based on tides have been documenting for decades: % Area Undeveloped for 2 ft SLR Marsh-bound communities need high % Area Undeveloped & Protected for 2 ft SLR and topography, marsh- 80 % Area Undeveloped for 5 ft SLR upland transition zones ground in times of flood tides. The % Area Undeveloped & Protected for 5 ft SLR will have a different look 2013 U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Re- 60 and feel in different parts covery Plan for Tidal Marsh Ecosystem of the Bay. of Northern and Central California, 40 which provides guidance for marsh Today, Thomson and restoration, says that the marsh-up- his colleagues are apply- 20 land transition habitat is a critical eco- ing what they have learned system component and just as impor- by recreating physical 0 tant as the marshes themselves. “The South Central North Suisun North Central South transition zones at places language changed from should restore Bay Bay Bay Bay Delta Delta Delta like Bair Island and Pond transition zones,” Thomson says, “to A17, which is part of the must restore transition zones.” DM For the State of the Estuary Report 2015, scientists devel- South Bay Salt Pond oped an indicator of the “health” of the Bay Area’s supply of Restoration Project. While CONTACT migration space from tidal areas into uplands. The indicator David Thomson, [email protected] assesses the current percent of undeveloped space in the the long, gently sloping area of transition zones and the percentage of that space transitional habitats are New Mapping Methodology for that is protected from development. no longer feasible at the Transition Zones Bay’s edge because of www.sfestuary.org/vision WEATHERREPORT So what’s in store for the Bay Area winter precipitation. However, there this winter? Dr. Michael Dettinger, a is one big caveat: the really big rain research hydrologist with the United event events in our historical records Wet? Dry? States Geological Survey, cautions occurred during the same weak La Whatever against drawing conclusions based on Niña conditions that we saw last year the past winter’s storms. “Last year and that are currently brewing in the From the Oroville dam to Highway was so unusual that it would be com- tropics. 37 to San Jose neighborhoods along pletely unexpected to get another like “I’m duty bound to point out that Coyote Creek, last winter’s unusual it this year,” says Dettinger. “It would rainfall unearthed northern Califor- the four largest floods over most cen- be like pulling an ace of spades twice nia’s many flood vulnerabilities. It tral Sierra Nevada rivers have histori- in a row out of multiple card decks was a costly lesson for the Bay Area: cally happened when we were in weak shuffled together.” in San Jose alone flooding forced the La Niña status,” says Dettinger. “So evacuation of 14,000 people – many of According to Dettinger’s research, despite the low odds we can’t take the possibility of another strong winter whom after nine months are still try- past river levels in the Sierra Nevada completely off the table.” ing to recover – and caused over $100 show that last year’s weak La Niña million in damages. conditions most often result in normal continued page 4 3 CLIMATE themselves out and found their place on the slope,” says Save the Bay’s restoration manager Donna Ball. Some of the magic had to do with Nudging Natural Magic the intensity of the timeline too. The “Miraculous” isn’t a term that a very sophisticated watering system entire project had to be constructed comes easily to the lips of scientists that allows us to test all kinds of differ- within 15 months because of grant deadlines (the project was largely and engineers. But the word, along ent discharge rates,” says ESA As- funded by the Oro Loma and Castro with a quickly quelled gulp of incre- sociate’s Mark Lindley, lead engineer Valley Sanitary Districts and a Bay dulity, cropped up more than once in for the project. “We can cycle between Area Proposition 84 Integrated Re- interviews concerning the preliminary dry and wet days, and saturated and gional Water Management Grant from results of the horizontal levee ex- drained soils, mimicking the natural the California Department of Water periment on the San Lorenzo shore conditions these plants might experi- Resources administered by the San — including off the charts levels of ence in the transitional zone at the Francisco Estuary Partnership). removal of nitrogen and pharmaceuti- edge of Bay marshes.” cals from wastewater passed through Another magic ingredient is the The accelerated timeline prompted the system and growth of willows, diversity of species planted, with a some innovative thinking by project cattails, and wet meadows. particular emphasis on perennials partners. Lindley developed a way that regenerate every year vegeta- to speed up levee building on loose This pilot sea level rise adaptation bay mud — which has a tendency tively via buds. Botanist and coastal project, led by the Oro Loma Sanitary to compress, settle, buckle, bubble, ecologist Peter Baye chose each spe- District, combines precision engi- “heave,” and flow back into any cies in the mix to replicate the great neering, native plants, irrigation via excavation area—by moving heavier range of conditions in a transitional treated household wastewater, and a material around as a compression zone where fresh water from local hump of bay mud, sand, and gravel. weight to “surcharge the subsurface.” watersheds and aquifers would natu- The idea is to test which ingredients Jason Warner, general manager of the rally seep into the back of our salt –liquid, solid, vegetable — in what sanitary district, shepherded multiple marshes — if we hadn’t built so many doses and combinations make the partners through design, permit- levees, walls, and communities right levee bulk up and leaf out fastest, and ting, construction and funding chal- up to their edge. best “polish” (clean) the wastewater. lenges with “phenomenal vision and As the Bay Area confronts a rise in sea level projected to accelerate rap- idly as early as 2040, those charged with protecting drowning shorelines are exploring new options for how to help increase their elevation in rela- tion to the advancing tides naturally. This closely-watched experiment goes beyond sea walls and sediment lifts to harness the productive power of plants, which as they go through cycles of growth and decay lay down new layers of organic matter over soils — adding much-needed inches to shoreline elevations. “I’ve been drinking the restoration Kool-aid long enough to have seen lots of failures, surprises, and unplanned Participants in Resilient by Design challenge stand at the top of horizontal levee looking over outcomes,” says Save the Bay’s Jessie an associated wet weather basin, with the jungle of growth on the new levee behind them.