Ariel Rubissow Okamoto is both today’s editor-in-chief and the founding editor of ESTUARY magazine (1992-2001). She enjoys writing in-depth, silo-crossing stories about water, restoration, and science. She’s a co-author of a Natural History of San Francisco Bay (UC Press 2011), frequent contributor of climate change stories to Bay Nature magazine, and occasional essayist for publications like the San Francisco Chronicle (see her Portfolio here). In other lives, she has been a vintner, soccer mom, and waitress. She lives in San Francisco close to the Bay with her architect husband Paul Okamoto.
When I was becoming a writer I had a fire in my belly for saving the planet. What I imagined doing with my life was mainly protesting, and calling out all the ways in which we were being unfair to the birds, bees and truffula trees that share our space here on planet Earth. But where I ended up in my writing was not in activism but in observing, describing, and celebrating the people at the frontlines taking care of our one special Estuary, not the planet. Whether the scientists themselves, the experimental projects, the complexities, the beauties, these things all fueled my flame and made me feel involved. The scientists and managers became my heroes; the landscapes my challenge...
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Restoration is a powerful concept. Physically it entails putting something back, making it right again; emotionally it requires hope for the future, a sense of something worth doing. In the Estuary, restoration is no longer about recreating some pristine ecosystem that once was. The vast marshes that carpeted the Delta and circled the Bay before Europeans arrived out West are long gone; the great rivers spilling fresh water and salmon downstream are a shadow of their former selves; the myriad creeks and sloughs offering migratory paths and habitats for so many estuarine creatures are now laced with obstacles and lined with concrete. But for some time now, the call to restoration work has been growing. People in all walks of...
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Carol Bach, who oversaw the restoration of a sliver of tidal wetlands on San Francisco’s industrialized shore in 1999, was alarmed to see her work eroding away decades later. Waves crossing the Bay from Hayward to Heron’s Head steadily carved away at this small peninsula of tidal habitat and public park favored by locals with few other options for waterfront recreation. The erosion was hard to miss: steep escarpments developed along the shore; the size of the marsh shrank; a tidal pool favored by shorebirds breached and became an embayment. “We wanted to stop the erosion, restore the tidal pond, and protect the whole landscape using natural infrastructure,” says Bach, who stuck around long enough at the Port to fix...
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Nothing reveals just how much the upper Estuary's seesaw of tides and freshwater flows is micro-managed than prolonged drought, and the resulting fiddling with barriers, gates, and water quality standards to prevent the ocean tides and salinity from intruding too far upstream. Come summer, managers begin to talk fearfully of "losing control of the Delta" and the dreaded outcome: salt water too near the export pumps...
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Dead fish belly up in Lake Merritt and San Francisco Bay this past August sent scientists like Keith Bouma-Gregson scrambling to pinpoint the cause. A harmful bloom of marine algae had taken up residence in the Bay. Bouma-Gregson discusses his observations of the event in this podcast.
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For the first time in decades, California’s federal estuary management and water quality programs are getting a big bump in bankroll. Priority actions in the newly updated Estuary Blueprint, a 25-action consensus plan for improving the health of San Francisco Bay and the Delta, are poised to take advantage of a new influx of federal money. “We’re fortunate with timing,” says San Francisco Estuary Partnership (SFEP) environmental planner Darcie Luce. Completed this spring, the 2022 Blueprint includes some well-thought-out actions oriented toward greening grey infrastructure, making the region more resilient to climate change, and improving equity in adaptation planning and projects — all of which are federal priorities. The new money will flow toward Estuary Blueprint actions and related projects...
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Why not richer rice fields, more wetlands, better boat launches, extended trails, even eco-tourism? ? A new survey for the Delta Islands Adaptation Project, funded by a Prop 1 Watershed Restoration Grant, wants the public’s opinion on the importance of 10 possible land-use objectives leading to the selection of one of the four islands for improvements. As your blinking cursor hovers over a satellite image of Bouldin, Bacon, Webb, and Holland Tracts, the survey lays out all that the experts know already: Holland is the least subsided; Bouldin the most accessible by road; Webb the best candidate for making more fish food, and more. “The Central Delta has some of the most critical landscapes in the state, and also some...
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I come from a long line of fisherfolk. My grandparents had a tiny cabin on a Quebec lake. We visited some summers. My grandfather let me drive the big white speedboat at a snail’s pace while he smoked cigars and trolled for trout off the stern. Once, when I caught one bigger than his catch-of-the-day, he “accidentally” knocked it back into the lake with the net. On the dock, we’d sunbathe while he cast lines overhead with a precision worthy of the movie A River Runs Through It. At the lake, we ate trout and eggs, trout salad, baked trout. I survived on spoonfuls of Cool Whip. (Photo above is editor as a teenager with Kay Rubbra, my grandmother, and...
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On bright hot days, standing in the shade can feel a lot better than standing in the sun. The same goes for oysters living in the inter-tidal shallows of San Francisco Bay. When the tide is low, the oysters bake in the sun. During extreme heat events they can even die. But in this coastal region there is one factor that could help mediate the heat: fog. Indeed, over the past year, San Francisco State graduate student Alexandra (Allie) Margulies has been examining fog data and monitoring oyster density at five sites around the Bay, and recruitment at 10 sites, building on a long-term monitoring dataset collected by the San Francisco Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve. “Fog can help scatter...
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2021 Is Our 30TH Year of Publication What should our next five look like? Your comments on our past place in your history and suggestions for the future appreciated! Who’s Who These Days? We’re looking to profile people in new jobs or people moving jobs or people retiring or people working under the radar. This year has been a big year of changes, and we’d like to capture people on the move in our next issue of Pearls in December. Please email the editor with suggestions. Want to receive Estuary in PRINT? We still create and print a paper magazine, that great thing for perusing without clicks, reading without blue light, surfing topics with no algorithm trapping you in your silo!...
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A few months before his retirement in October 2021, Ariel Rubissow Okamoto asked Ted Sommer, lead scientist for the California Department of Water Resources, to reflect on his accomplishments and hopes for the future. Sommer is a leading researcher on native fishes, and has published more than 60 research articles in peer-reviewed scientific publications since 2001. Sommer began his long career at DWR in 1991 under Dr. Randy Brown. Early on he founded the Feather River fish monitoring program, but his work moved progressively downstream to the Bay-Delta, where he has also helped manage the Interagency Ecological Program since the late 1990s. According to his longtime colleague Jim Cloern, an emeritus scientist with the United States Geological Survey: “Ted has a...
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Kathy Boyer is used to getting up in the dark so she can slide across the mudflats into the Bay at first light. But this past May, she got a once-in-a-decade treat. As the professor from SF State’s Estuary & Ocean Science Center aimed her boogie board at some two-year-old eelgrass beds growing off the Richmond shoreline, the Super Flower Blood Moon rose in the blue field of the western sky. “It’s hard to get up at 4 a.m. but if I wasn’t doing this work, I would have missed the eclipse,” said Devon Wallace, a student of Boyer’s and a recent SF State graduate, who was enjoying the chance to get in some field experience after a year grounded...
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Sam Schuchat, outgoing chief of the California State Coastal Conservancy, is perhaps one of the most dapper state officials I’ve ever met. He often wears an elegant hat with a brim and band, no Giants bill cap or REI wooly for the leader of a powerful state agency, one that has done more to ensure that the coast is accessible to all Californians than any other. Of course, Schuchat would say he had a lot of help — partners everywhere, lots of folks willing to give any project involving the Conservancy their best. Schuchat is quite the politician: he likes to work the room, shake hands, bend ears, and make deals. I can’t say I know him personally. But I...
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Northern harriers, long-winged rodent-hunting hawks, make impressive migrant journeys. Research by UC Davis’ Hull Lab sheds new light on these journeys. Harriers are a familiar sight in California’s wetlands, especially in winter. Researchers captured fifteen female harriers–ten in winter, five in spring–in Suisun Marsh and equipped with 14-gram GPS backpack transmitters, too heavy for use with the smaller males. Telemetry data from seven of the ten winter females revealed migrations of up to 600 miles, to nesting sites from the San Joaquin Valley to Washington State and Idaho. The eighth, nicknamed Blanca for her pale yellow eyes, flew through British Columbia and Alaska all the way to the Arctic tundra, a 7,000-mile round trip that set a distance record for...
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Like water rains down and flows, spreads and seeps through an Estuary, touching the land along its path, so too do birds migrate across our planet. ESTUARY loves a good bird story, and our reporter Joe Eaton writes most of them with great care for both birds and words, while photographer Rick Lewis always has his lens aimed at the feathers flying overhead or dipping in the water (see above). Read three great migration stories ….
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A Stream of Science Takeaways. ESTUARY News sent reporters to the biennial Bay-Delta Science Conference in September. This special edition of Pearls shares more than 20 takeaways.
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Drift, Drop or Floc? Tailing Sediment as it Moves Through Marsh Margins This June two USGS scientists will be trying to get as close as they can to the edge of the South Bay’s Whale’s Tail Marsh to lay out their tools: tiles, filter paper, current profilers, and other sediment accretion measuring instruments. Estuary Reporter Ariel Rubissow Okamoto interviews reseachers Jessie Lacy and Karen Thorne about what they’re looking for at the marsh edge, and how it may help us answer burning questions about the future of the region’s wetlands. Is there enough sediment in the system to help them keep pace with sea level rise by buildng up their elevations naturally, or do humans need to sprinkle some sediment...
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A Stream of Science Takeaways. ESTUARY News sent reporters to the biennial Bay-Delta Science Conference in September. This special edition of Pearls shares more than 20 takeaways.
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A Stream of Science Takeaways. ESTUARY News sent reporters to the biennial Bay-Delta Science Conference in September. This special edition of Pearls shares more than 20 takeaways.
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A Stream of Science Takeaways. ESTUARY News sent reporters to the biennial Bay-Delta Science Conference in September. This special edition of Pearls shares more than 20 takeaways.
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Nothing could be stranger than sitting in the dark with thousands of suits and heels, watching a parade of promises to decarbonize from companies and countries large and small, reeling from the beauties of big screen rainforests and indigenous necklaces, and getting all choked up.
It was day two of the September 2018 Global Climate Action Summit in San Francisco when I felt it.
At first I wondered if I was simply starstruck. Most of us labor away trying to fix one small corner of the planet or another without seeing the likes of Harrison Ford, Al Gore, Michael Bloomberg, Van Jones, Jerry Brown – or the ministers or mayors of dozens of cities and countries – in person, on stage and at times angry enough to spit. And between these luminaries a steady stream of CEOs, corporate sustainability officers, and pension fund managers promising percentages of renewables and profits in their portfolios dedicated to the climate cause by 2020-2050.
I tried to give every speaker my full attention: the young man of Vuntut Gwichin heritage from the edge of the Yukon’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge who pleaded with us not to enter his sacred lands with our drills and dependencies; all the women – swathed in bright patterns and head-scarfs – who kept punching their hearts. “My uncle in Uganda would take 129 years to emit the same amount of carbon as an American would in one year,” said Oxfam’s Winnie Byanyima.
“Our janitors are shutting off the lights you leave on,” said Aida Cardenas, speaking about the frontline workers she trains, mostly immigrants, who are excited to be part of climate change solutions in their new country.
The men on the stage, strutting about in feathers and pinstripes, spoke of hopes and dreams, money and power. “The notion that you can either do good or do well is a myth we have to collectively bust,” said New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy whose state is investing heavily in offshore wind farms.
“Climate change isn’t just about risks, it’s about opportunities,” said Blackrock sustainable investment manager Brian Deese.
But it wasn’t all these fine speeches that started the butterflies. Halfway through the second day of testimonials, it was a slight white-haired woman wrapped in an azure pashmina that pricked my tears. One minute she was on the silver screen with Alec Baldwin and the next she taking a seat on stage. She talked about trees. How trees can solve 30% of our carbon reduction problem. How we have to stop whacking them back in the Amazon and start planting them everywhere else. I couldn’t help thinking of Dr. Seuss and his truffala trees. Jane Goodall, over 80, is as fierce as my Lorax. Or my daughter’s Avatar.
Analyzing my take home feeling from the event I realized it wasn’t the usual fear – killer storms, tidal waves, no food for my kids to eat on a half-baked planet – nor a newfound sense of hope – I’ve always thought nature will get along just fine without us. What I felt was relief. People were actually doing something. Doing a lot. And there was so much more we could do.
As we all pumped fists in the dark, as the presentations went on and on and on because so many people and businesses and countries wanted to STEP UP, I realized how swayed I had let myself be by the doomsday news mill.
“We must be like the river, “ said a boy from Bangladesh named Risalat Khan, who had noticed our Sierra watersheds from the plane. “We must cut through the mountain of obstacles. Let’s be the river!”
Or as Harrison Ford less poetically put it: “Let’s turn off our phones and roll up our sleeves and kick this monster’s ass.”
4th California Climate Change Assessment Blues
by Isaac Pearlman
Since California’s last state-led climate change assessment in 2012, the Golden State has experienced a litany of natural disasters. This includes four years of severe drought from 2012 to 2016, an almost non-existent Sierra Nevada snowpack in 2014-2015 costing $2.1 billion in economic losses, widespread Bay Area flooding from winter 2017 storms, and extremely large and damaging wildfires culminating with this year’s Mendocino Complex fire achieving the dubious distinction of the largest in state history. California’s most recent climate assessment, released August 27th, predicts that for the state and the Bay Area, we can expect even more in the future.
The California state government first began assessing climate impacts formally in 2006, due to an executive order by Governor Schwarzenegger. California’s latest iteration and its fourth overall, includes a dizzying array of 44 technical reports; three topical studies on climate justice, tribal and indigenous communities, and the coast and ocean; as well as nine region-specific analyses.
The results are alarming for our state’s future: an estimated four to five feet of sea level rise and loss of one to two-thirds of Southern California beaches by 2100, a 50 percent increase in wildfires over 25,000 acres, stronger and longer heat waves, and infrastructure like airports, wastewater treatment plants, rail and roadways increasingly likely to suffer flooding.
For the first time, California’s latest assessment dives into climate consequences on a regional level. Academics representing nine California regions spearheaded research and summarized the best available science on the variable heat, rain, flooding and extreme event consequences for their areas. For example, the highest local rate of sea level rise in the state is at the rapidly subsiding Humboldt Bay. In San Diego county, the most biodiverse in all of California, preserving its many fragile and endangered species is an urgent priority. Francesca Hopkins from UC Riverside found that the highest rate of childhood asthma in the state isn’t an urban smog-filled city but in the Imperial Valley, where toxic dust from Salton Sea disaster chokes communities – and will only become worse as higher temperatures and less water due to climate change dry and brittle the area.
According to the Bay Area Regional Report, since 1950 the Bay Area has already increased in temperature by 1.7 degrees Fahrenheit and local sea level is eight inches higher than it was one hundred years ago. Future climate will render the Bay Area less suitable for our evergreen redwood and fir forests, and more favorable for tolerant chaparral shrub land. The region’s seven million people and $750 billion economy (almost one-third of California’s total) is predicted to be increasingly beset by more “boom and bust” irregular wet and very dry years, punctuated by increasingly intense and damaging storms.
Unsurprisingly, according to the report the Bay Area’s intensifying housing and equity problems have a multiplier affect with climate change. As Bay Area housing spreads further north, south, and inland the result is higher transportation and energy needs for those with the fewest resources available to afford them; and acute disparity in climate vulnerability across Bay Area communities and populations.
“All Californians will likely endure more illness and be at greater risk of early death because of climate change,” bluntly states the statewide summary brochure for California’s climate assessment. “[However] vulnerable populations that already experience the greatest adverse health impacts will be disproportionately affected.”
“We’re much better at being reactive to a disaster than planning ahead,” said UC Berkeley professor and contributing author David Ackerly at a California Adaptation Forum panel in Sacramento on August 27th. “And it is vulnerable communities that suffer from those disasters. How much human suffering has to happen before it triggers the next round of activity?”
The assessment’s data is publicly available online at “Cal-adapt,” where Californians can explore projected impacts for their neighborhoods, towns, and regions.