Paddlers Monitor Plovers

People



19
Sep

Paddlers Monitor Plovers

By Ashleigh Papp “It sounds fun and glamorous to kayak to work, but it’s not always the case,” says Ben Pearl, plover program director for the San Francisco Bay Bird Observatory. Pearl spends six months of the year in the field researching predator threats, habitat status, and breeding behavior of the local snowy plover population. “All of this habitat used to be tidal marsh and was converted to salt ponds, so the ground is sometimes soft and nearly impossible to walk through,” says Pearl. “At some breeding sites, a kayak is almost always required to reach the nests.” Protecting these areas for plovers and other species requires ongoing work, but the habitat improvements are worth the effort, even if the...
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19
Sep

New Regional Rainmaker

Environmental issues were important to Michael Montgomery as a young man. Montgomery’s career path led to 33 years with the United States Environmental Protection Agency, where he gained a wealth of experience in navigating complex regulatory landscapes to protect water resources, and ultimately to the San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board, where he is now executive officer.
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16
Aug

California Sun Podcast Interview with ESTUARY’s Editor Dives into All Things Bay & Delta on the Front Burner Today

This August the California Sun’s Jeff Schechtman interviewed ESTUARY magazine’s editor in chief Ariel Rubissow Okamoto, also a long-time Bay Area science writer, about her personal opinions on the resiliency of the largest estuary on the West Coast, the challenges facing the Sacramento–San Joaquin Delta, and the potential impacts of climate change and sea level rise on the San Francisco Bay.  Listen to the 20-minute podcast here. Mentions: Nutrients, Toxics, Giant Marsh, Adaptation Atlas, Resilience, Sea Level Rise impacts, BCDC Art, Oro Loma Horizontal Levee, UC Berkeley, Regional Planning, Franks Tract, Central Delta Corridor, North Delta Arc, State of the Estuary, climate-smart infrastructure and more. Links to Topics Referenced Climate Smart Infrastructure for California- Paying it Forward Report Adapting to...
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17
Jun

Bay-Delta Leaders Comment on Climate

These magazine pages share the opinions of various new leaders in the Estuary management world about climate change. “The biggest challenge is that it is difficult for people, including decision-makers, to plan for uncertain, long-range challenges. We know that in order to make the greatest impact we need to start now,” says BCDC’s Dana Brechwald.
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17
Jun

A Tricky Ballet

Malea G., a fourth grader in Mr. Moore’s class at Bayview’s Malcolm X Academy Elementary School, shows me her Tower of Power. It’s a wooden, trapezoidal structure roughly two feet high and decorated with stickers naming personal qualities she’s proud of. I ask her which of these she might turn to when dealing with climate change. “Leadership,” Malea answers after a brief pause. “If there was a flood, someone would need to take charge.” Working in partnership with a program called Y-PLAN...
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13
May

Joaquin Esquivel is impatient with the narrative that has dominated California water policy for decades, especially when it comes to the Delta and the eternal tug-of-war between farms, cities and the environment.

“For so long in the water space you’ve had these false dichotomies where you are being told you have to choose one or the other,” says Esquivel, who Governor Gavin Newsom appointed Chair of the State Water Resources Control Board in February. “These narratives can fuel themselves, they take root in communities, but they don’t really do much to get to the heart of the policy question.” A native of the Coachella Valley, Esquivel served on the State Board for two years prior to his appointment. He cites literature as a particular passion, and had planned on a career in academia before a college internship in former Senator Barbara Boxer’s Washington, D.C. office turned into a full-time job. “What I...
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13
May

Jessica Fain got a crash course in resilience planning when Hurricane Sandy hit the East Coast in 2012.

Fain, Planning Director for the Bay Conservation and Development Commission (BCDC) since October, was part of a three-person office in the Waterfront and Open Space Division of New York’s Department of City Planning. “We were doing a small study on adaptation options,” she recalls. “In the middle of that, Sandy hit. Suddenly all eyes were on us.” Fain brings that background to a setting unlike New York in many ways. Instead of five boroughs, for example, she’s dealing with a multiplicity of counties, cities, and special districts. But the Bay Area presents new opportunities: “There’s more space for green infrastructure, wetlands, adaptive solutions at a large scale. New York is so constrained; it’s built out to the edge.” She’s involved...
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13
May

Therese McMillan inherits huge challenges as the new Executive Director of the Metropolitan Transportation Commission.

The Bay Area region is beleaguered by traffic, a crippling housing shortage, and growing inequality. MTC plays a role in all these areas. “We have a master coordinator role in being able to knit the region together through land use and transportation planning, and major dollar investments,” says McMillan of the MTC, which distributes billions of public transportation dollars collected annually by local, state and federal governments, although she notes that the agency doesn’t “have land use authority, or our own transit system—that is vested in the cities and counties, and separate transit agencies.” While land use and transportation are squarely within MTC’s purview, for others issues—housing affordability and growing economic inequities—MTC must partner with myriad other agencies across nine...
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13
May

Susan Tatayon wants to bridge the emerging communication gap between Delta science and policy.

While Tatayon, who was installed as Chair of the Delta Stewardship Council in January, sees good communication efforts on the part of council scientists and staff, not everyone on the receiving end gets their drift. “What I’m learning from some council members and others is that they don’t understand the connection between the science being done and the policies they want to make.” Tatayon assumes her new position after a career that includes stints at The Nature Conservancy, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and the Department of Water Resources. It was at DWR as a young staffer in the Department of Planning that Tatayon discovered her interest in environmental protection: “I was assigned to read impassioned letters about saving Mono...
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13
May

Kris Tjernell thinks there could hardly be more a more exciting time to be leading conservation and water management programs in the country’s most populous and perhaps most water-stressed state.

“I see opportunities for big change,” says Tjernell, who was appointed California Department of Water Resources’ deputy director last May. At the time the DWR was adopting a new approach toward land and water management—especially the inclusion of floodplain restoration in many of its flood control projects. “We are demanding a lot out of the landscape of the Delta, and we are demanding a lot out of the Central Valley and beyond,” Tjernell says, describing a system of resource allocation has left many parties feeling short-changed. The solution, he says, is the multi-benefit approach, whereby one piece of land is used productively for multiple purposes—especially seasonal agriculture, winter floodplain habitat for fish and waterfowl, a place to put flood water...
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13
May

Sandra Scoggin has the qualities the San Francisco Bay Joint Venture needs in a leader at what she calls a ‘pivot point’ for the partnership.

In the early days, when the wetland protection and restoration landscape was less complex, the JV “could be everywhere and do everything.” Now it needs to be more strategic. “I’m a listener, a synthesizer, and I’m pretty good at herding diverse interests toward shared goals,” says Scoggin, who is taking over the 20-year-old wildlife habitat venture after 16 years in second seat. “The JV is built on deep and lasting relationships,” she says, both awe and pride in her voice. Scoggin grew up in Los Angeles. After early work studying songbird nesting, she developed a soft spot for the Swainson’s thrush: “It’s like a ghost of the riparian forest, with an ethereal, beautiful song that comes out of nowhere.” In...
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06
May

Louise Conrad sees the Delta Stewardship Council’s science program, which she now leads, as poised to shift into a new gear – from breaking down the science landscape and building a new foundation for Delta science to actually doing it.

 “With the update of the Delta science plan done, we can now can sink our teeth into some topical issues our scientists can be passionate about, such as aquatic invasive vegetation, microcystis and climate change, for example,” says the former Department of Water Resources (DWR) fish biologist. Conrad grew up in Philadelphia and developed an interest in conservation on summer road trips to western national parks in their family’s Dodge Ram. “My mom sewed us individual seat covers with pockets for entertainment items,” she says.  She is pleased to be part of an agency with so many women in leadership positions and with such a broad mandate. At DWR, she says, legal mandates required them to focus on water project...
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06
May

Dana Brechwald is trying to bring rising sea levels to the forefront of the conversation for Bay Area communities and their affiliated agencies.

Joining the Bay Conservation and Development Commission as Program Manager for the Adapting to Rising Tides ( ART) program last November, Brechwald oversees multiple projects assessing coastal areas that are vulnerable to sea level rise. “We’re working at every scale, from the federal level down to community members who will be affected by climate adaptation,” she explains. Brechwald and her team cover the gamut of a community’s assets — from transportation systems to areas set aside for more development or conservation — offering tools and guidance for how to prepare for specific local climate change challenges. “There are a number of factors that we look at to identify communities where people are less able to prepare, respond to, or recover...
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06
May

Dave Halsing is in a race against sea level rise to restore the South Bay salt ponds.

 “The existential challenge is doing marsh restoration fast enough to get it into place and established before sea level rise really starts to kick in,” says Halsing, the new Executive Project Director for the massive, 15,000-acre South Bay Salt Pond Restoration Project. The thoughtful and reflective restoration manager is seizing the reins from previous director John Bourgeois to lead the 50-year, $1 billion effort that is the largest wetland restoration project on the West Coast. “I had to take a shot at what was truly a unique, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” Halsing says of his new position. “Connecting with so many different agencies, communities, and stakeholder groups is a fascinating and rewarding opportunity. It touches on so many aspects of the natural...
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06
May

Manuel Oliva’s career has been focused on climate change and conservation since his days as an engineering graduate student at the University of Maryland.

“I’ve done the entire spectrum, from the federal to the state to the NGO perspective,” says the incoming CEO of Point Blue, the Petaluma-based nonprofit focused on environmental conservation and research. “This gives me a really good overview on how to best support our work as an organization.” Most recently Oliva was an acting director of the Development Resources and Disaster Assistance Division at the USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service. His work there focused on climate-smart agriculture projects, such as working with cacao farmers in Colombia to improve the resilience of their crops to climate change and expand sustainable agroforestry strategies. “It was very akin to what Point Blue has been doing for 50-plus years, as far as marshalling the science...
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02
May

Melissa Foley’s list of concerns as the new head of San Francisco Bay’s premier water-quality program is long: microplastics, pharmaceuticals, PFASs, and other chemicals and contaminants entering the Bay through runoff and treated sewage.

An interdisciplinary scientist trained in marine ecology, with experience in policy, management, and public outreach, Foley assumed leadership late last year of the Regional Monitoring Program for Water Quality in San Francisco Bay (RMP). Along with overseeing the RMP’s rigorous efforts to study and manage Bay pollutants, Foley who comes to the RMP from New Zealand’s Auckland Council, where she used long-term environmental monitoring data to inform both regional and national management and policy strategies, says she’ll draw on her social-science background to include the public in the program’s work. That means calling upon citizens for data collection and getting them involved in improving the health of the Bay, right where they live or work. “We try to develop integrated...
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23
Apr

New Video: USGS Investigates 50-Year Mystery of San Francisco Bay

Between April 1969 and March 2019, USGS conducted 1,167 boat-based sampling cruises to better understand changing conditions in San Francisco Bay — producing data used by scientists around the world. Meet four scientists and the captain of the March 14, 2019 cruise, and watch them plumb the Bay depths, drag nets, filter samples, and explain their work.
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21
Mar

Youth Learn to Shift as the World Shifts

In a bright classroom in the hills of East Oakland, youth huddle in small groups building miniature rain-catchment models. Birdhouses serve as the base for a catchment system composed of a foil gutter, a straw pipe, and a Dixie cup rain barrel. Spritzes of water from a spray bottle generate rain-like condensation, which trickles through the system into the barrel. The eight middle schoolers gathered on this chilly Saturday morning are participating in a youth social-media ambassador training organized by a climate-readiness program called Mycelium Youth Network. In a few weeks’ time, they will build a life-size rain catchment system here at Pear Tree Elementary School. Lil Milagro Henriquez founded Mycelium Youth Network in late 2017, while fires engulfed California....
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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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13
Dec

Shark Hunt Stand Off

In the spring and summer months, anglers armed with heavy line and large hooks drop anchor in the murky, current-torn waters between Alcatraz and the Golden Gate Bridge seeking the elusive, and occasionally gigantic, broadnose sevengill shark. As social-media hype stokes excitement among trophy seekers, some other fisherfolk and conservationists want to see the pursuit ended before it depletes shark numbers. While interest in catching large, breeding-age sevelgills has risen in recent years, it remains unclear whether the population can sustain such fishing. “There hasn’t been any long-term monitoring study of the population, so we have no baseline estimate,” says Sean Van Sommeran, founder of the Pelagic Shark Research Foundation.
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