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 life have answered the call – scientists, engineers, farmers, activists, politicians. Young people and families have gone out to pick up trash and plant natives. Bird buffs have gathered every year to count avian migrants overhead. Creek adopters have rebuilt eroding banks and carried steelhead around dams so they can reach spawning grounds.
Featuring Steve Rothert, DWR; Liz Juvera, SFEP; Dylan Chapple, DSC; Bronwen Stanford, SFEI. Produced by Amy Mayer & Kim Hickok for Estuary News
A succession of government programs have committed and recommitted to saving the Delta, the endangered, the baylands, water quality, and more — urged on by the champions of the environment. Politics often intervene in reaching ambitious goals but somehow most people still support ecosystem restoration in some form. It feels good.
In this special Almanac of Restoration issue of Estuary News, we celebrate restoration in all its forms and sample projects of every kind. We review a few ways in which we are measuring our progress: did the birds and fish come back? And we delve deeper into some of the latest iterations of restoration, ranging from centering equity and nature-based design to combining flood control and habitat creation in multi-benefit projects. We also include stories representative of the different landscapes that make up our Estuary, starting high up in the watersheds with rivers, lakes and creeks, moving into the Delta and upper Estuary, and then exploring efforts all around San Francisco Bay. Finally, we offer some retrospective reflections — in story, audio and video — of the changes in our thinking over the decades since we decided, sometime way back when, to try to fix an ecosystem so altered, so remade, it is hard to imagine it healthy ever again. The field of restoration, here in our Estuary, reflects myriad fascinating nuances.
Personal Perspective
For myself, I was drawn to this work back in the early 1990s out of frustration. Not enough people seemed to be aware that we were fouling our nest. It was clear to me that if we kept polluting and destroying and paving and killing what was still wild or green that there wouldn’t be much left to sustain our own health.
Despite our nation’s strong environmental mandates, not enough of us have since made restoring our nest a priority. For myself, telling your stories in Estuary — revealing the heroism and wisdom of all your research, resource management, advocacy, and restoration efforts — has sustained me in this long battle for our future. But I think we all realize now just how royally we messed up. And how many problems remain to be solved.
Ariel Rubissow Okamoto, Estuary Editor
My personal beat, as soon-to-be editor emeritus, has been quirky. For some reason, my favorite topics in these 30 years of storytelling have been sediment, mercury, and Giant Marsh. I began writing about sediment and dredging because no one else on our writing team would do it – boring! But it soon became the ubiquitous ingredient in almost every estuarine restoration story. Mercury – from our mining legacy and now everywhere in our air and water – challenged me with its shapeshifting complexity. It could be inert or toxic; it could lay around in the mud for centuries and then suddenly get disturbed and passed up the food chain; it could taint your bass filet or make you go crazy.
But in later writing years I settled on Giant Marsh for the reasons mentioned above. This project to restore the whole range of intertidal habitats – from subtidal eelgrass beds and oyster reefs to mudflats and salt marsh to upland transition zones — captured my imagination due to two things: the sheer difficulty of doing some of the restoration work in the sticky bay mud; and the ambition of it. Here was, and is, an example of how we can dream big about restoring our nest and then actually do it. As Roosevelt once said, and I can’t resist a minor edit for brevity: If it’s not hard, it’s not worth doing.
Featuring Brenda Goeden, BCDC; Caitlin Sweeney, SFEP; Jeremy Lowe, SFEI
More Voices
When I asked some of our restoration practitioners to share their views about restoration in audio many responded with eloquent reflections and insights. These responses are offered throughout this post in different forms. Some look back and some look forward. We tried for a mix of folk from younger and older generations. Together with the variety of voices in our 17 other stories, we hope our readers get a sense of the richness and variety of work to restore the Bay, Delta and watershed.
What has been an a-ha moment in your experience as an estuary scientist?
Steve Culbertson, Lead Scientist, Interagency Ecological Program
When wetland ecologists and planners were following up on the 2008 USFWS Biological Opinion regarding requirements to restore 8,000 acres of wetlands in the Delta and Suisun Marsh we became very excited at the prospect of adding so much additional acreage to the regional wetlands inventory. There was much pouring over of maps and ownerships of land in the Delta as we began imagining how and what wetlands could be restored where. Reality set in as we began to understand that finding that much suitable and available acreage (land at proper elevations in public ownership) was going to be a considerable challenge, aside from the daunting technical hurdles of constructing or “realizing” 8,000 restored acres of wetland habitat. What was particularly sobering as we pondered what effect all this additional wetland would have on the regional ecosystem more generally was the fact that even if we were to achieve the ambitious goal of 65,000 acres of additional restoration to our wetland inventories, we would be moving the needle regionally from 10% of existing historical wetlands to 12% of existing historical wetlands (as subsequently documented in the wonderful SFEI report “Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta Historical Ecology Investigation: exploring pattern and process, 2012). How much of an effect on the estuarine biota should we really expect all this restoration to have, given the historical landscapes and how drastically the entire watershed has been altered? Would a few percentage points nearer to the historical precedent and evolutionary context prove to be at all meaningful? We really have yet to do enough or have waited long enough for the regional system to tell us the answer.
Photo: Steve Culbertson
What specific restoration project in the Bay-Delta watershed stands out to you as something special and why?
Paul Detjens, Senior Engineer, Contra Costa Flood and Water District
The October 2021 levee breach at the Lower Walnut Creek Restoration Project stands out as a milestone for restoration along the Contra Costa County shoreline. It was a huge project for our Flood Control District, but easily overshadowed by some of the other large restoration efforts around the bay. Early in the planning phase, we leaned hard into outreach via all the typical social media channels, and filmed a fun series of YouTube shorts called Lower Walnut Creek Adventures. We gave countless site tours and talked about “what we will build” and “the importance of the salt marsh harvest mouse.” We handed out custom posters to those that took a tour, and everyone seemed to really like the project. But ultimately it was hard to actually determine the public’s enthusiasm for the restoration work that we were working so hard to deliver. Of course, everyone in this relatively small world of restoration scientists, biologists, geomorphologists, and like-minded folks totally gets what we’re doing. But what about Jane Q. Public? What about those folks who need to vote for the funding, and write those letters to politicians to make sure restoration projects get done?
Once we were well into our construction season, I asked our contractor about setting an exact date for the levee breach, so we could invite some media, maybe get some cool photos and make it into some sort of event. I had attended a levee breach for another restoration project, and seen some on You Tube, and my expectations were pretty modest. When I sat down with staff from our project partner, John Muir Land Trust, my idea of a 20 person event quickly was supersized to 200 guests! The event went off without a hitch, and everyone left with a souvenir coffee mug. Most of the crowd that turned out were not restoration practitioners.
When the excavators roared to life and started to scoop away at the levee, it didn’t take long until water from Suisun Bay started to dramatically flow in. The energy level in the crowd was off the charts. With so many hoots, hollers and cheers, I was filled with a renewed hope that the desire to bring back habitat, to make resilient landscapes, and to better manage our wetland resources came from everyone in the crowd, not just us folks that do this for a living. It highlighted how many ‘normal’ people believe in the value of restoration and gave me optimism that Lower Walnut Creek wasn’t just something special, but rather a Contra Costa milestone that bodes well for restoration projects to come.
Photo: Paul Detjens
One thing is clear these days: restoration is becoming increasingly hard to do. We not only have to achieve multiple benefits with each project; get more bang for every buck; navigate politics, permitting and outdated ways of thinking; listen more carefully to community concerns and be more inclusive in decision-making; we also have to do it all faster because of climate change.
Featuring Campbell Ingrahm, Delta Conservancy; Carl Wilcox, retired CDFW; David Lewis, Save the Bay
Checking our Work?
One question emerges again and again in every restoration conversation and project update: did we improve conditions for fish and wildlife, or enhance ecosystems processes?
The importance of monitoring the results of our actions and investments, and of having strong, shared metrics to do that with, cannot be underestimated. Good monitoring also requires a strong dose of humility. We will not achieve perfection, but can we find a way to be comfortable with adequate improvements? Keeping in mind the bigger picture are things better or worse? In a system so altered by our activities and so filled with invasives, contaminants and other stressors, it is tough to tease out cause and effect, let alone progress. But we must try. There are signs now that we are doing a better job of this.
The wetlands regional monitoring program, finally off the ground twenty years after it was first conceived, seems to be promising some answers.
Science, data synthesis, and a long term commitment to monitoring will take us far, but in recent years, as inequities pop our Bay Area bubble and climate extremes challenge us to the core, we are reminded again of how important people are in our restoration work. We are reminded that not everyone has the time and money to get involved in restoring our nest. We are reminded that there is suffering and injustice that access to wildness, and opportunities to do hands-on restoration or training for environmental jobs, can ameliorate.
In closing, I just want to acknowledge that this issue, despite the abundance of stories and voices, only touches the tip of the restoration iceberg. While we couldn’t cover every story now, we have likely covered most in the past.
In other news, this special almanac of restoration will be our final issue of Estuary News. After 30 years of building a community around Estuary stories and storytelling, it is time for us to leave the scene and make way for something new. We had a good run, and we thank you for your loyal readership. This June you’ll hear from us about how to access our rich library of stories in the future. Stay tuned.
Meanwhile, keep telling those stories! Keep making it right! We’ll be listening.
— Estuary News Team
Story Production Credits:
Audio Editor: Amy Mayer Quote Review & Video Production: Kim Hickok
Production Support: Roland Greedy & Chris Austin Music: Peter Rubissow
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.
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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.