By

Aleta George
About the author

Author and journalist Aleta George writes about the nature, history, and culture of California.

Articles by Aleta George

24
May

Aleta George

I live near the Suisun Marsh and love exploring the Bay-Delta. My favorite stories for Estuary News took me to new places in our wonderful part of the world. The heart of the Delta feels like stepping back in time to a slower-paced way of life, one that beckons whenever I’m overwhelmed. Seeing salmon return to Putah Creek, which is where my water comes from, makes me happy that my water agency is part of this effort. And standing in the middle of a surprising Walnut Creek restoration site—squeezed between a landfill and a refinery—gives me hope that there’s always a way to bring nature back. — Aleta George My Picks The Grande Dames of the Delta June 16, 2022...
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Seining Luco pond. Photo: Brian Williamshen
21
Mar

Suisun’s Working Landscapes Support Fish

On a sunny spring day in 2014, two UC Davis PhD candidates in waders pulled a 30-foot seine through Luco Pond (also known as the Potrero Duck Club) in Suisun Marsh. Luco Pond is within the Nurse-Denverton Slough Complex where duck clubs use tidal gates to control water exchange. After 45 minutes of counting diminutive fish, Brian Williamshen and Melissa Riley were excited to tally more than 6,900 sticklebacks, a thorny-backed native fish in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. “There was definitely a moment of excitement,” Williamshen says. “But when we were at our 50th fish, and the little spines kept poking us in the fingers, our emotions shifted to like, oh man, we still have hundreds more to go!”...
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Top Photo: Sailboats crossing under Delta drawbridge. Photo: Caltrans
16
Jun

The Grande Dames of the Delta

The moveable bridges that cross the rivers and sloughs in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta were built in the first half of the 20th century, and most are operated by control panels as old as the bridges themselves. A day spent touring these strong-boned grande dames on backwater levee roads...
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15
Feb

Sturdy Sturgeon

A 90-year-old Australian lungfish at San Francisco’s Academy of Sciences has received a lot of press lately, but there is a wild fish species living in the San Francisco Bay that has the potential to live that long or longer — or so we think. While one white sturgeon caught in the Columbia River Basin was estimated to be 104 years old, the life expectancy of white sturgeon, Acipenser transmontanus, which includes the Central Valley population endemic to the San Francisco Bay, is hard to pin down. “There are old ones out there, but it’s really hard to give a number because we just don’t have it,” says John Kelly, statewide sturgeon coordinator for the California Department of Fish and...
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25
Oct

DFW 150 Years on Patrol, and Work Still Dangerous

Lieutenant James Ober worked as a fish biologist with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife for a year before joining its Law Enforcement Division in 2009. “I enjoy interacting with hunters and fishers. Most of them have a great appreciation for the resources and want to protect them,” says Ober about being on patrol. Ober belongs to the tradition of wildlife officers, both personally and professionally. His fifth great grandfather, Edwin H. Ober, was an officer and biologist during the early 20th century, making James the second wildlife officer in his family. Ober is also one of the tens of thousands of officers who have worked to protect the natural resources of the San Francisco Bay since 1871. This...
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23
Mar

Nourishing Encinal Beach

Before the East Bay Regional Park District completed the Encinal Dune Restoration and Shoreline Stabilization Project in December 2020, this tucked-away beach frequented by locals and harbor seal enthusiasts needed some love. The ice plant that dominated the low-flung dune offered little sustenance to fauna; the beach required more sand; the washed-up creosote-treated timber was strewn about like a giant game of pick-up sticks; and the large, rusty barge that buttressed a short section of the San Francisco Bay Trail had become dangerous. The nearly two-acre project site in the shape of an arrowhead includes Encinal Beach, the dune behind it, and a short section of the Bay Trail. Encinal Beach and its adjacent dune formed after the U.S. Navy...
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22
Sep

Londons Roam and Feast on the Bay circa 1910

Jack London usually sailed west whenever he left the Oakland Municipal Wharf, but on December 18, 1913, he headed east — because he could. Although the canal connecting the Oakland Estuary to San Leandro Bay had been completed in 1902, it wasn’t until the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers widened and deepened the canal in 1913 that it became navigable. Aboard the Roamer, a 30-foot yawl London bought used in 1910, Jack and his wife, Charmian, approached the Park Street Bridge. “Mate has to hustle for an hour or so to get Park St. Bridge open + we’re first boat that it ever opened for,” Charmian wrote in her diary. The Fruitvale and High Street bridges also swung open, and...
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18
Jun

Carbon Goes Deep

Many Yolo County farmers and ranchers are keenly aware of climate shifts and actively involved in GHG reduction strategies. Scott and Karen Stone run Yolo Land & Cattle, a 7,500-acre ranch that lies partly in the Blue Ridge Berryessa Natural Area. The Stones have planted riparian areas and hedgerows for carbon sequestration, use solar water pumps to reduce GHGs, and manage a 400-acre conservation easement for Swainson’s hawk on their irrigated pastureland.
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19
Mar

Time Travel on the Bay

By Aleta George “In day-to-day life we look at the world in a three-dimensional view,” Liam O’Donoghue, host and producer of the award-winning podcast East Bay Yesterday, says, “but when you know history, you can look at it through four dimensions because you can see into the past using your imagination.” On a recent boat tour of the East Bay shoreline led by O’Donoghue, Captain Andy threaded his vessel Pacific Pearl through the Berkeley pier as if it were a time portal. “History makes me feel more emotionally connected to myself and where I live,” says Jozefina Logu, one of the women at the bow. At one point the tour stopped at the Brothers Islands to view the lighthouse-turned-bed-and-breakfast and...
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19
Sep

True to the Trail

A small group of friends are walking the entire San Francisco Bay Trail by tackling one segment at a time, in order, once a month. After two years, they have covered more than half the trail, both the finished, and as best they can, the unfinished portions.
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13
Dec

Saltwater Revival

“Swimming sustains me,” says Fran Hegeler of the South End Rowing Club. That’s the kind of enthusiastic language some Bay swimmers express, but sharing the water means sharing it in sickness and in health. Right now, Sausalito’s Marine Mammal Center is dealing with a large outbreak of leptospirosis, a bacterial infection that can cause fatal kidney damage in California sea lions. But it isn’t likely to affect swimmers, as the bacteria is not known to survive long in saltwater.
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15
Jun

Glimmers of Baywide Intent

“Bay Restoration is a race against time,” says San Francisco Restoration Authority Chair Dave Pine. “That’s why it’s so important to bring the regulatory agencies together to fast-track the permitting process.” The Restoration Authority, overseeing projects funded by Measure AA, took a step forward this June by approving funding for a Regulatory Integration Team. BCDC and six other organizations, including the US Army Corps of Engineer, the US EPA, federal and state wildlife agencies, and the state Water Board, joined forces to develop a more effective approach to permitting AA-funded projects. Brad McCrea, SF Bay Conservation and Development Commission, seems optimistic: “There’s great enthusiasm...this interagency team is expected to change the way permitting is handled for restoration projects. In a...
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20
Jun

Caspian Push and Pull

The origin story of a project to lure Caspian terns to several barren islands in the South Bay Salt Pond Habitat Restoration Project stretches all the way to the mouth of the Columbia River in Washington. This bird story that turns out to be a fish tale shows what can happen when multiple agencies and states work together to protect the numbers of an endangered species by changing the patterns of another species. In this case, the robust population of Caspian terns in the Columbia River basin have instigated efforts to redistribute the population to protect endangered salmonids exiting the Columbia River bound for the sea, and their efforts have been led to some success in the San Francisco Bay.
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