Day

March 20, 2019
20
Mar

Widening Gyre of Ocean Challenges

Last year, researches working with SF State’s Estuary and Ocean Science Center installed an array of instruments to track underwater parameters. John Largier, a UC Davis professor of oceanography, says he expects clear trends and patterns indicative of warming and acidifying waters to become apparent in the data in about a decade. With nations making painfully slow progress in reducing their emissions of greenhouse gases, Largier thinks local efforts to boost the resiliency of the Bay ecosystem could be especially powerful.
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20
Mar

Attention to Outcomes

The new Wetland Regional Monitoring Program, funded through an EPA Region 9 Wetlands Program Development Grant and managed by the San Francisco Estuary Partnership, aims to revolutionize the way that data is collected and shared about one of the Bay Area’s most fragile yet resilient ecosystems -- wetlands. “Monitoring data sits on shelves,” says Heidi Nutters...
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20
Mar

High Road or High Water for Wildlife

While we were cooped up inside waiting out February’s storms, many animals were on the move. Cameras positioned along a creek in the Pacheco Pass wildlife corridor captured footage of animals passing through a culvert under a bridge on SR-152 that crosses Pacheco Creek. “We caught a bobcat on camera walking through the creek,” says Tanya Diamond...
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20
Mar

Choppy Waters for Flow Rules

The winter kicked off with the State Water Resources Control Board’s December vote to adopt increased flow objectives for the southern Delta. The vote provoked an immediate volley of lawsuits, both from water users and from environmental organizations. “Governor Newsom has staked out turf against the Trump Administration,” says San Francisco Baykeeper’s Jon Rosenfield...
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20
Mar

Putah Creek Pipeline for Salmon

“The dream is to reestablish a natural run of salmon in Putah Creek,” says UC Davis professor emeritus Peter Moyle. In 1972 Putah creek was a trickle of water between heavy machinery mining gravel for the campus roads. Moyle and others urged the university to cease mining and by the end of the decade the administration had designated a riparian reserve along the creek on campus. Since then there’s been an incredible increase in salmon....
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20
Mar

SOS for Finicky Native

In 2016, restoration managers with The Nature Conservancy discovered that western sycamores planted along the Sacramento River had hybridized with the non-native London plane tree. The native sycamore is “kind of a messy tree,” says project manager Ryan Luster. “The branches break off and create cavities that wildlife love to use.” Concerns about the tree’s status first arose in the 1990s...
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20
Mar

Getting a Bead on Table Salt

By Joe Eaton Microplastics are present in the San Francisco Bay, and at higher concentrations than Chesapeake Bay or the Great Lakes, according to a San Francisco Estuary Institute study led by Rebecca Sutton. There’s “a lot of uncertainty about potential impacts to people and wildlife,” she says.“[Miicroplastics are] a variable contaminant and challenging to interpret.” What we know is sufficient cause for concern: apart from their physical impacts, plastics can absorb other pollutants and some plastic ingredients are known endocrine disruptors. Cargill, the in-bay salt producer, says research is still determining the impact of microplastics on sea salt supplies but food safety remains a top priority.
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