Magazine Features

Shorebirds-on-1-restored-habitat_U.S.-Geological-Survey_William-Chan

Wetland Restoration is for the Birds

It’s high tide at Eden Landing Ecological Reserve, on San Francisco Bay due west of Union City, and Nathan Van Schmidt is counting birds on Pond E9 with both hands. Van Schmidt, science director for the San Francisco Bay Bird Observatory, has a clicker in his right hand to track American Avocet, and another in his left for Northern Shoveler. “Wetlands can support an incredible biomass of birds,” he says....
A freshly groomed bank far left. Some of the old revetment now forms riffles mid-river. Photo: Daniel McGlynn

Setbacks and Swallows for the Sacramento River

Adam Henderson spreads out an atlas with colorful pages on the closed trunk of his white sedan. It’s an early morning in February and the sun is just high enough to start burning off a blanket of fog that’s settled among the nearby willows and cottonwoods. Behind us, across a gravel parking lot, is a gate that’s an access point for the Sacramento River National Wildlife Refuge, controlled and maintained...

VA Agreement Highlights Habitat Questions

Restoring marsh and wetland habitat can have significant benefits for dozens of species throughout the Bay and Delta—that’s beyond dispute. But when it comes to saving the Estuary’s most imperiled fish, how much habitat improvements can help in the absence of dramatically increased freshwater flows is a question that has dogged and divided scientists and policy makers for years. As the State Water Resources Control Board considers the latest proposal...

Restoration Reflections: A Hundred Ways to Cherish the Estuary

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...
Treatment near Bair Island with airboat. Photo: Drew Kerr, ISP

The Battle for Native Cordgrass

Now in its 17th year of monitoring and treatment, the San Francisco Estuary Invasive Spartina Project remains a uniquely ambitious invasive plant removal effort: from its timeline (indefinite) and size (covering 70,000 acres with more than 150 landowners and managers) to its budget (about $50 million to date) and use of technology (genetic testing, GIS, airboats, helicopters). It’s been an effective one, too, reducing stands of invasive cordgrass in the...
Aerial view of Bouldin Island. Courtesy MWD

An Inclusive Vision for Bouldin Island

Over resistance from local governments and environmental organizations, in 2016 Southern California’s Metropolitan Water District purchased five islands in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. While it wasn’t immediately clear what the powerful water agency intended for these islands, the move reminded some Californians of the “Wild West” years of water rights claimed by surreptitious land purchases. Now, years later, it appears the District is making good on that purchase by...
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ESTUARY News is the 30-year-old regional magazine of the San Francisco Estuary Partnership and its myriad partners around the Bay and Delta. Written by professional, independent journalists, it provides in-depth, silo-crossing coverage of the environmental, restoration.

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