Month

December 2017
15
Dec

All In for One Water

As climate change threatens to upend precipitation patterns and disrupt water supplies, agencies are increasingly searching for ways to wring more benefits out of every drop. Valley Water (Santa Clara) is seeking to take integrated water management planning to the next level through its One Water initiative. “The idea is to manage all water — treated water, groundwater, stormwater, flood water, water for habitat, species and Baylands — as one resource,” says the District’s Brian Mendenhall.
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14
Dec

After the Burn Comes the Rain

When fire strikes upper watersheds like it did last October, responses can vary widely depending on land use and ownership. “We view wildfire as a natural process,” says Cyndy Shafer of California State Parks. Wildlands and backcountry areas have largely been left alone, but it’s a different story when lands are managed not for ecosystems but for drinking-water quality. “You want to minimize the erosion that occurs on site,” says Scott Hill of the East Bay Municipal Utility District, “we don’t want sediment in our storage reservoirs.” What’s best must be considered on a case-by-case basis.
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13
Dec

Minding the Margins

“The language changed from should restore to must restore,” says David Thomson of the San Francisco Bay Bird Observatory, referring to federal guidance on tidal marsh recovery. Marsh-upland transition zones are crucial for a properly functioning estuary, but nearly all of these historic zones have been impacted by human activity. Thomson, along with a number of partnering agencies have worked to figure out how to bring transition zones back to life. “We have seeded over 30 species of local native plants,” he says of a Bair Island restoration project.
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13
Dec

Smart Plover Predators

The South Bay’s salt pannes, bleak unvegetated flats left behind by commercial salt works, seem inhospitable to life. To western snowy plovers, though, they look like home. Still, the plovers are in trouble themselves. Considered a California species of special concern, the Bay-wide snowy plover breeding population sits at about 250. As Karine Tokatlian explained in her State of the Estuary Conference presentation in October 2017, efforts to boost their breeding success in the remaining salt pannes have encountered unexpected challenges. Predator management resources for the Eden Landing plover colony are limited, according to Tokatlian. Fencing nests work better against mammals, but the plover’s primary predator is the common raven. Relocated predators find their way back. Research on these birds’...
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13
Dec

Worries Over Puny Pumps

Pump capacity, reliability, and cost are already big concerns for flood-control and sea level rise managers. “Gallon for gallon, it’s easily the most expensive way to deal with water,” says Roger Leventhal, a senior engineer with the Marin County Department of Public Works. “It’s not the ideal solution, but it’s the one we’re falling into.” New pumps, while costly in both dollars and electricity, are currently in the works. “It seems unlikely for us as a region to get away with increasing the number of pumps 100-fold, which is what we would have to do,” says Lindy Lowe, former Bay Conservation and Development Commision planning director.
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13
Dec

Non-Sticks Stick Around

Common coatings and repellants used in textiles for clothing and furniture are sticking around in San Francisco Bay. “The reason for the lack of declines is not clear,” says researcher Meg Sedlak of the San Francisco Estuary Institute. Some early environmental offenders in this line of fluorinated chemicals (PFASs) have been banned, including one used in Teflon. “In 2006 and 2009, the levels of some PFAS we found in Bay cormorant eggs were among the highest observed concentrations in the world,” says Sedlak.
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13
Dec

Cold Curtain

Cold water, essential for the life cycle of Chinook salmon, is all too often in short supply along the Sacramento River. Two clever innovations have been implemented to conserve cold water into the autumn. First: A 300 foot tall, 250 foot wide “adjustable straw” possessing a series of intake gates enables power plant operators to draw water from behind the dam at three different depths. Second: A 40 foot tall rubber sheet.
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13
Dec

Small Natural Features, Big Ecological Benefits

One of the beauties of the Bay Area is that the landscape is rich in remnants of the wilderness that was once there. Journey through the ancient salt marshes and freshwater seeps of the tidal flats, to the grand old oaks casting shade over deep pools along seasonal streams, and even the precipitous cliffs of Alcratraz island. Every one of these has vast ecological benefits and comprise some of the Bay’s small but key natural features.
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13
Dec

Table Set for Snails

Several months ago, Mike Moran of the Delta’s Big Break Regional Park got a call about a cluster of unusual looking eggs. “We thought we might be looking at this channeled apple snail thing,” he says.
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13
Dec

Searching for a Few Good Weevils

“They’re pretty charismatic,” says Julie Hopper of the tiny herbivorous weevil N. bruchi. Native to Argentina, these weevils were first brought to North America to combat the spread of the invasive weed water hyacinth.
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13
Dec

Resprout Photo Essay

Spending time in the burned zones is an almost overwhelming assault on the senses; this is a familiar world inverted. The colors, textures, shapes, and smells are all unfamiliar. That which should be green is black. That which should be inside is out. That which should be standing has fallen. Nothing, it seems, can be taken for granted.
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13
Dec

Nudging Natural Magic

“Miraculous” isn’t a term that comes easily to the lips of scientists and engineers. But the word cropped up more than once in interviews concerning the results of the horizontal levee experiment on the San Lorenzo shore – including off the charts levels of removal of nitrogen and pharmaceuticals from wastewater passed through the system.
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13
Dec

Coyote’s Cache of Intermittent Riches

There’s a common perception in California that more water is always better for fish. Yet many native species possess traits that allow them to persist through harsh, dry summers and cyclical drought. Over the long run, summer releases from reservoirs and urban runoff can harm local fish by laying out a welcome mat for non-native species adapted to perennial flows, Leidy says. “In areas where streams have been altered by humans, where the natural hydrograph has changed, that’s where you see invasives take a foothold.” Coyote Creek’s strictly seasonal flows, and those of other naturally intermittent streams in the state, by contrast, are so extreme in the winter and so sparse in the summer that non-natives simply can’t cope. “It’s...
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Bridges - public shore
01
Dec

Public Sediment Favors Mud

“We’re finally seeing a change in paradigm,” says Brett Milligan regarding how sediment is treated in the Bay Area. What was once considered waste is now considered a resource, and a group called “Public Sediment,” part of the Bay Area Resilient by Design Challenge, are proposing mud rooms, mud berms, mud pathways, and top-to-bottom mud management to better build up Bay Area shorelines and keep them above rising water.
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