When the restoration of Lookout Slough is complete, Lookout Slough will be no more. Created to provide water for a century-old duck-hunting club, the human-made canal will be filled in as part of a $119 million, 3,400-acre tidal wetlands restoration, the largest ever in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.
“Drought and climate change have elevated the importance of these types of multi-benefit projects,” said Karla Nemeth, director of the California Department of Water Resources, when the project broke ground last June. “This project will reduce flood risk for communities in the Central Valley and create much-needed habitat for Delta smelt and other endangered and threatened fish species.”
By their expected completion in late 2024, the new tidal wetlands will replace former irrigated pasture and duck-hunting clubs in eastern Solano County at the lower end of the Yolo Bypass. In addition to creating shallow-water aquatic habitat, the transformed area will provide 40,000 acre-feet of water storage to help prevent flooding and protect surrounding communities.
“The current science is that between 60,000 and 80,000 acres of habitat need to be restored in the Delta,” says Charlotte Biggs, project manager for the Department of Water Resources.
Lookout Slough is adjacent to two completed tidal wetlands restorations, Lower Yolo Ranch and Yolo Flyway Farms, which are about 2,000 acres combined, as well as Liberty Island, which provides open-water and shallow habitat, Biggs says. It is also a critical piece of 16,000 contiguous acres of restored wetlands planned for the Cache Slough region. “Restoration has more of an impact at the landscape scale,” Biggs says. “The larger these restored areas are and the more connected they are, the more benefits they will provide.”
Improvements to Cache and Hass slough complex, with tidal channel constructed and Vogel Island under water. Photo: EIP/Bill Arnerich
Constructing a tidal wetland
The Lookout Slough restoration site is bordered by Liberty Island Road to the north; Shag Slough to the east; and Duck, Hass, and Cache sloughs to the west. Ecosystem Investment Partners (EIP), a national private-equity environmental restoration firm, has managed all of the project’s planning, design, permitting (by nine state and federal agencies), and now, construction. When the restoration work is complete, EIP will “hand over the keys” to the Department of Water Resources for long-term management.
In February, construction of the new marsh was well underway, albeit somewhat slowed by winter rains. Leading a tour of the huge construction site, EIP project manager Stephanie Freed pointed out the 60-acre portion of the property, known as Vogel Island, that was restored to tidal flow by breaching 1920s-era agricultural berms adjacent to Cache and Hass sloughs this past October. “It’s functioning just as we designed it to,” she said.
Construction site at Lookout Slough in February 2023. Photo: Janet Byron
The existing levees around the larger Lookout Slough property continue to restrict tidal waters from the remaining 3,100 acres until a 25-foot-high setback levee can be completed at Duck Slough. Then, a network of more than 20 miles of new channels will be constructed within the property, followed by the breaching of Shag Slough in nine places to allow in the natural flow of the tides.
Creating aquatic habitat
The Department of Water Resources will receive credit for about 3,000 acres of restored habitat for the endangered Delta smelt, partially fulfilling the agency’s obligation to create 8,000 acres following a 2008 Biological Opinion issued by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The new aquatic habitat is also consistent with the 2009 Biological Opinion issued by the National Marine Fisheries Service regarding operations of California’s State Water Project and federal Central Valley Project.
Giant garter snake in public road. Photo: EIP/Bill Arnerich
In addition to Delta smelt, the project is expected to support longfin smelt, Chinook salmon, green sturgeon, steelhead, numerous birds, and the threatened giant garter snake, a five-foot-long snake found only in about a dozen isolated marshy areas of the Central Valley. “The EIP project team actually discovered that the giant garter snake was here,” says Bill Arnerich, lead biologist for the project. He identified five giant garter snakes and relocated three outside of the work area unharmed during the first year of construction. In addition, throughout construction the project is maintaining a 54-acre relocation area that “has all the habitat elements that the snake needs,” Arnerich says.
Return of the Delta smelt?
When complete, 75% of the Lookout Slough wetlands will be intertidal habitat and 17% subtidal habitat; the rest will be upland areas including levees, access roads for PG&E transmission towers, and islands where birds can roost and nest.
Vogel Island with boaters and tundra swans. Photo: EIP/Bill Arnerich
While numerous marsh-dependent species will undoubtedly benefit from the new habitat, the jury is still out on whether any amount of new tidal wetlands can bring back the Delta smelt. John Durand, senior research scientist with the UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences and a board member of the area’s Reclamation District 2098, applauds the transformation of “a huge swath of low-value rangelands” into aquatic habitat. However, he is concerned that invasions of aquatic weeds will clog up tidal waterways and obstruct native fishes such as the Delta smelt, which is, he says, functionally extinct. “One restoration project is not going to be able to save the smelt.”
State and federal agencies are not giving up on the Delta smelt. “We’re very aware of this issue of invasive weeds and how they threaten the functionality of the shallow-water habitat ecosystem,” says Louise Conrad, Department of Water Resources lead scientist. The agency has an agreement with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife to monitor and study invasive species and their impact on the aquatic food web, plus a $30 million partnership with the California State Parks Division of Boating and Waterways to treat invasive aquatic vegetation in restored delta wetlands, including with nonherbicidal treatments such as mowing and burning, Conrad says.
For the past year, UC Davis fish scientists have released thousands of hatchery-raised Delta smelt near Rio Vista and tracked their movements in an effort to figure out if and how the finger-size fish can be brought back from the brink of extinction. “Lookout Slough is not a silver bullet for restoring Delta smelt,” Conrad says. “We’re trying to stand in the way of complete extinction and reverse its population trajectory to one that is positive.”
Regardless of how the Delta smelt fares, Biggs says that a restored Lookout Slough will provide a multitude of benefits for aquatic ecosystems, people, and the Delta. “This project provides benefits to the whole food web, not only for Delta smelt but also larger fish, birds, and wildlife that benefit from having more food sources in the Delta.”
Top Photo: Vogel Island after breaching during first filling. Photo: EIP/Bill Arnerich
Janet Byron is an independent journalist and editor specializing in science, the environment, and health care. She is co-author of Berkeley Walks (Heyday Books, 2nd ed., 2018), self-guided neighborhood walking tours in America’s most intriguing city, and she currently serves as president of the Berkeley Path Wanderers Association. From 1999 to 2013, she was managing editor of California Agriculture, the peer-reviewed journal published by the University of California Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources.
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Hothouse Earth
By Ariel Rubissow Okamoto
Photo by Megan Nguyen
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.
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.