Day

June 17, 2019
17
Jun

Bay-Delta Leaders Comment on Climate

These magazine pages share the opinions of various new leaders in the Estuary management world about climate change. “The biggest challenge is that it is difficult for people, including decision-makers, to plan for uncertain, long-range challenges. We know that in order to make the greatest impact we need to start now,” says BCDC’s Dana Brechwald.
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17
Jun

Tailing a Thrush

By Joe Eaton Researchers like Point Blue Conservation Science ecologist Tom Gardali have equipped Swainson’s thrushes, weighing just over an ounce, with tiny, one-gram GPS tags. If recovered, the tag shows the thrush’s exact winter destination, information vital to border-crossing conservation efforts. “You only get a few readings,” says Gardali, “and you still need to get the tag back. But GPS goes to a spot on the map. This is Holy Grail stuff.”  Sierra/Cascade thrushes were presumed to migrate to Mexico like their coastal cousins. When researchers included thrushes from Mount Lassen and Lake Tahoe in their GPS tracking, they learned otherwise. “The mountain birds are going from Mexico to Panama, possibly as far as Columbia.”
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17
Jun

Permitting Opens a Fast Lane

“Innovating in government is easiest done when there are incentives,” says Brad McCrea of the Bay Conservation and Development Commission. The Bay Restoration Regulatory Integration Team, which begins accepting applications this fall, has been designed to accelerate the pace at which large-scale projects find their path to funding through the daunting thicket of permit applications and regulatory approvals.
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17
Jun

Next Day Delivery: PCBs, Plastics, and Mercury All in One Package

The slow, downstream chemical migration of legacy contaminants like mercury and PCBs into the Bay is something that Lester McKee and his colleagues at the San Francisco Estuary Institute hope to cut short. “The sooner we can stop the inputs of these contaminants,” says SFEI’s Alicia Gilbreath, “the sooner the Bay can have a chance to recover.”
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17
Jun

Needed Now: A Big Blue-Green Push

From rain gardens to green streets to permeable parking lots and pebble dunes, landscape architects and resource managers are working to soften up shorelines and sidewalks, all to sponge up and filter stormwater runoff before it reaches the Estuary. This article details projects in the South Bay Salt Pond Project’s Eden Landing, Hayward’s Turner Court, and the Delta’s Elk Grove, and along the East Bay’s San Pablo Avenue and San Jose’s Chynoweth Avenue.
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17
Jun

A Tricky Ballet

Malea G., a fourth grader in Mr. Moore’s class at Bayview’s Malcolm X Academy Elementary School, shows me her Tower of Power. It’s a wooden, trapezoidal structure roughly two feet high and decorated with stickers naming personal qualities she’s proud of. I ask her which of these she might turn to when dealing with climate change. “Leadership,” Malea answers after a brief pause. “If there was a flood, someone would need to take charge.” Working in partnership with a program called Y-PLAN...
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17
Jun

Brinkmanship for Frail Smelt

Delta smelt had a bad year in 2017. Although scientists are still analyzing the data, the message seems to be that strong freshwater flows alone are not sufficient to allow the population to increase. The resulting sense of urgency has led fish biologists to consider how cultured smelt, raised in hatcheries, could be used to supplement the wild population.
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