Day

June 19, 2014
19
Jun

Shifts in Selenium Spikes

USGS scientists headed up river this June to see whether two Asian clams had also headed upstream with the drought. When there’s less fresh water flowing out to sea, salty ocean water intrudes inland, and changes the distribution of these pesky invertebrates. Potamocorbula like it saltier than Corbicula, and usually hang out in the Suisun Bay region. But scientists suspect drought conditions may have changed all that, and with it, how and when the contaminant selenium gets cycled through the estuarine food web via the clams.
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19
Jun

Hamilton Done, But More To Do

Breaching the outboard levee near Marin County’s Hamilton community this May is cause for both a whoop of celebration and a sigh of relief. Celebration because it was an ambitious wetland restoration project with a complicated design and multiple partners that wasn’t easy to pull off, yet in just a few months it’s become a beautiful landscape filled with blue water, green shoots, yellow flowers, quacking ducks, and happy neighbors. Relief because at times the costs and challenges of moving so much mud to the site, in order to the raise the elevation of subsided wetlands, seemed overwhelming to those in charge. But they did it. And now they need to do it again; only this time they hope it...
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19
Jun

Freeing Fish While Locking Up Mercury

Restoration planners were worried that connecting a former salt evaporation pond with the Bay could introduce long-dormant mercury to the wider ecosystem, and initial studies of levels in water bird eggs and fish reinforced that concern. A set of adjustable gates between the pond and the river allows seasonal closure of the pond and the ability to control the flow. But that raised a new question: would the river’s steelhead run get sidetracked...
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