The wetlands that time forgot

If Marin is to adapt to rising tide levels--we need a sea change in attitude

5/11/11

Wetlands and marshes, once dismissed as the province of nature enthusiasts and environmentalists, can be a key to protecting residents, development and commercial interests along the shores of San Francisco Bay.

"I look at tidal wetlands as about as close to magic as you're ever going to get when you're dealing with sea-level rise," says Will Travis, executive director of the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission. "All wetlands are wonderful for flood protection. They soak up floodwater and they absorb wave energy. And they actually sequester carbon. I know of nothing else that fits both categories: reducing greenhouse gases and adapting to the impacts of climate change that we can't reduce or eliminate."

A spate of recent reports places an increased emphasis on the importance of wetlands in the Bay Area, including Marin. The San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association issued an assessment of the consequences of a rising sea level and concludes that elected officials, business leaders and residents should waste no time in hunkering down and to create concrete plans to meet the environmental, health and economic impacts of rising water levels and climate change. The report, titled "Climate Change Hits Home," emphasizes the critical need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Each time scientists assess the consequences of sea-level rise it seems to get increasingly dire, says Sam Schuchat, executive director of the California Coastal Conservancy and chair of the San Francisco Bay Restoration Authority. Schuchat says implications of sea-level rise haven't hit home with most Bay Area residents--yet. "Flood control and sea-level rise are not things that (people) worry about, unless they live in a place like downtown Napa, where it floods." But, adds Schuchat, the consequences of sea-level rise, and recent reports that posit the levels may be rising higher than anticipated, are making a big impression on "people who think about this stuff all the time."

One of those recent reports comes from the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme, the science body of the eight-nation Arctic Council; it estimated that the ice in Greenland and the Arctic is melting faster than anticipated and could play a crucial role in increasing the sea level by as much as five feet by the end of this century. In this updated assessment, using the latest research techniques, scientists predict that melting ice, including the massive Greenland ice sheet, could contribute to a sea-level rise that tops 35 to 63 inches by 2100. Add to that some recently reported findings from scientists at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography who say that although California was spared from sea-level rise during recent decades stretching back to the 1970s, that reprieve may be finished.

Sea-level rise is far from uniform across the world's oceans. Wind patterns and ocean currents play a significant role in creating uneven sea levels. Wind affects upwelling in the ocean along the California coast, and that wind blows in cycles--called the Pacific Decadal Oscillation. When the wind blows stronger, which it has since the mid-1970s, it creates a condition that allows cooler water to rise from the deep Pacific, ocean upwelling. When the wind pattern abates, the upwelling also abates and allows the upper-level ocean to warm. Warm water takes up more space than cold water--and that means the sea-level rises. The Scripps scientists say wind patterns look as though they may be shifting. If that happens, it could exacerbate the effects for California of the sea-level rise that the Arctic scientists predict.

This confluence of consequences has prompted the Conservation and Development Commission to take a new look at its San Francisco Bay Plan, which delineates policies for development along the shoreline of San Francisco Bay--including San Pablo Bay. The new guidelines will "take sea-level rise into account," according to Travis. In addition, the Conservation and Development Commission is working with the Bay Area Air Quality Management District, the Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG) and the Metropolitan Transportation Commission "on a regional strategy that integrates greenhouse gas reduction and adaption to those impacts that we can't reduce or eliminate." ABAG chooses the board of the Restoration Authority, which currently has a North Bay vacancy following the death of Supervisor Charles McGlashan.

Much of the hard work to implement strategies to combat greenhouse gas and prepare for sea-level rise will take place in Bay Area counties, cities and towns. The participation of dozens of area agencies, local governments, businesses and residents would create a paradigm of regional planning. Nothing less is needed to prevent the impacts of sea-level rise from cutting into the quality of live and commerce in the Bay Area, say officials in the forefront of the effort. The immense scope of the effort needed is clear when looking at a map of wetlands in the bay and the expected rise in sea level. Lacking action in the North Bay, the level of water now expected would create new shorelines moved inland from Sausalito all the way north to Novato and over to Sonoma and Solano counties. Anyone who's parked a car in the Manzanita park-and-ride lot on an especially high tide knows the consequences of a rising sea level. The historic flood in the 1980s was made much worse because of an especially high tide, which pushed water right up Miller Avenue. In San Rafael, water inundated the downtown area, leaving just the tops of street signs visible. In a rising sea-level scenario, that high-tide consequence has an obvious impact that requires protecting shorelines, including existing marshes in danger of inundation. In Marin, the wetlands restoration at Hamilton is a notable project in part because it illustrates thenecessity to add material when restoring some marshes. When a marsh is paved or left dry the land sinks and can no longer support wetlands. Material must be added to raise the level of the land to a sufficient height to promote a renewed marsh.

Travis says it's important to understand the new shorelines projected in recent reports "are not areas that [definitely will be areas that are under water. They are maps showing low-lying areas around the bay that are vulnerable to sea-level rise. Some of those areas may be protected already. Other areas can be protected to a 55-inch level (sea-level rise) with some protective devices." Travis says the maps show "not the future that we are predicting; that is the future we are trying to prevent."

One of the methods to prevent that scenario builds on the push to restore wetlands and marshes that once ringed San Francisco Bay. Today, only about 5 percent of the original wetlands remain, and that 5 percent is under constant threat of development and pollution. But the alarm over sea-level rise is giving new impetus to the call to protect wetlands and increase their acreage.

The effort to protect wetlands received a real boost when Save the Bay formed in 1961 after three East Bay women, Kay Kerr, Sylvia McLaughlin and Esther Gulick, mobilized to stop a plan in Berkeley to double its size by filling in the bay. Save the Bay was instrumental in the creation of the Conservation and Development Commission, "which we helped create in 1965 to prevent wholesale filling in of the bay," says Save the Bay's executive director David Lewis. In 2008, Save the Bay sponsored AB 2954, which created the San Francisco Bay Restoration Authority. That legislation gave the governing board of the Restoration Authority the responsibility to explore, promote and coordinate methods and mechanisms to raise money on a local and regional scale that will go toward restoring wetlands on more than 36,000 acres already in public ownership.

Scientists estimate that to remain healthy, the bay needs 100,000 acres of tidal wetlands. In 1999, only about 40,000 acres remained. Another 36,000 acres already are owned by the public and can be restored--if sufficient funds are provided. Restoring those 36,000 acres will cost up to $1.43 billion over 50 years. Adding that to the current 40,000 acres of wetlands puts the 100,000-acre goal in sight, according to the Restoration Authority. Advocates hope to purchase additional acreage to put into the public trust to reach that ultimate goal.

State and federal money currently exists to help meet the goals of the Restoration Authoritybut considering budget climates, ongoing state and federal funding (and some private funding from foundations) is far from certain. "You can't count on any of this money from year to year," says Schuchat. "You're subject to whether the state is
selling bonds and (vicissitudes of the) federal budget, and so on."

That's where the idea of a regional property tax comes into the picture. The Restoration Authority is investigating whether Bay Area property owners are willing to pay about $20 a year to help restore wetlands along the bay. "If we could get some local money, we could count on it every year," says Schuchat. "It would be in addition to what's already available, and presumably it would be reliable. The amount would not be huge, but having money that is reliable is, I think, what makes it attractive. And, of course, it would serve as matching money."

Any move to raise tax money to restore wetlands would go to voters for approval. In a telephone poll conducted in the summer of 2010, 35 percent of respondents said they would definitely support a $25 parcel tax; 30 percent said they were leaning toward support. (Asked whether they would support a quarter-cent sales tax, 29 percent said they would definitely support it; 27 percent said they were leaning toward support.) The parcel tax proposal, the most realistic, came right up to the edge of a two-thirds approval margin.

Schuchat notes that the Restoration Authority has polled only up to a $25 parcel tax, which seems to be the limit of voter acceptance. "My guess is that if we do anything, it's going to be less than that, and we may not do anything in 2012. That's the earliest that the Restoration Authority could get something on a ballot. The Restoration Authority plans to conduct additional polling and by autumn decide whether to move forward in 2012. The state of the economy and the political temperature of the electorate will affect the decision."

The question about whether spending money on wetlands is a wise investment in a down economy is sure to enter the debate. In the poll, property owners seem to agree that if they know the facts about sea-level rise and how wetlands can protect shorelines--for flora, fauna, residential development and business--they may be willing to support a tax proposal.

Money raised will go toward projects already on a list "consistent with the selection criteria of the Coastal Conservancy and other organizations that protect the health and economy of the bay." Acting sooner rather than later has distinct environmental and economic advantages when it comes to combating sea-level rise, says Lewis. "Wetlands provide much less expensive and effective shoreline protection than sea walls or rock levees because wetlands can act as sponges during high tides and floods."

As Travis says, it's like magic.

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Foreign Species Invade San Francisco Bay

5/11/12

California is cracking down on invasive species, and that could have a big impact on national regulations due out later this year. The state has passed the strictest rules in the country to prevent cargo ships from bringing foreign plants and animals to San Francisco Bay. But the standards are so high, California may not be able to enforce them.

Hundreds Of Invasive Species

Trucks and cranes spring into action as a 900-foot container ship docks at the Port of Oakland. Every year, thousands of ships pass under the Golden Gate Bridge. They bring cars, sneakers, computers — and exotic organisms.

Biologist Andrew Cohen of the Center for Research on Aquatic Bioinvasions sees four of them. He slogs through a muddy beach in the eastern Bay Area and scoops up a clump of seaweed that's home to clams and snails. Cohen also spots some yellow dots, and he says they are "the egg mass of a Japanese sea slug which showed up here a few years ago."

Biologists have found hundreds of invasive species in San Francisco Bay, which Cohen says makes it one of the most invaded estuaries in the world.

"Anytime I go out in the bay," he says, "there's a reasonable chance I'm gonna find something I've never seen in the bay before – something which no one has seen on the Pacific coast before. That's just astonishing."

International Hitchhikers

Most of these invaders arrived as international hitchhikers. Ships that carry cargo on the open ocean have to balance their loads. So, Cohen explains, ships fill massive onboard ballast tanks by pumping seawater in at one port and pumping it out at the next.

"For a long time, people didn't think too much about this, 'cause it was just water, says Cohen. "But eventually, we found that we were moving virtually everything that lived in the sea."

Those transfers included parasites, which cause rashes, and the Asian clam, which altered the entire food web in San Francisco Bay. California has spent millions of dollars trying to get rid of the worst invasive species. But the state's efforts have rarely worked. The strategy has turned to prevention.

Treating The Water

Inside the Golden Bear, a 500-foot ship at the California Maritime Academy in Vallejo, engineer Bill Davidson switches on the ballast pumps to test a new water treatment technology. The idea is to kill the organisms in the water before the ballast is released. The system has two steps: First, the ballast water is filtered. Next, chlorine is added.

Davidson says the chlorine is fed back into the ballast stream and "that will ideally oxidize or kill any live organisms."

The treatment system neutralizes the chlorine before it's released, which makes it inactive. But getting the system to work is trickier than it seems, because the organisms are very small.

Tough Standards

In a lab on the ship, Julie Kuo of Moss Landing Marine Labs looks through a microscope at a tintinnid — a tiny, cone-shaped plankton. Kuo counts these organisms in water samples from the treatment process. She also checks to see if they're dead.

"If they're kind of sitting there and you don't know if they're alive or dead," she explains, "you poke them with a probe."

The treatment system is designed to meet international standards that limit the number of living organisms in ballast water. Right now those standards are voluntary. But California has adopted a rule that applies to all newly constructed ships, starting next January. The technology to reach this new standard isn't ready.

Nicole Dobroski is with the California agency overseeing the regulation. She says, "We recognize that that's a challenge, but there's a good reason we wanted it to be a challenge."

Dobroski acknowledges that none of the treatment systems being developed can consistently meet California's standards yet. Still, the state is moving ahead with the regulation.

"We wanted them to be innovative," she says. "We wanted them to think out of the box."

Ships across the globe will also have to think out of the box. Almost half of all of the cargo brought into the U.S. in shipping containers comes in through California ports.

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A Stronger and Clearer Clean Water Act

4/28/11

The Obama administration’s new guidelines for the Clean Water Act are an important first step in restoring vital legal safeguards to wetlands and streams threatened by development and pollution.

The guidelines are opposed by the usual suspects — real estate interests, homebuilders, farmers, the oil companies. They were welcomed, rightly so, by conservationists and others who have watched in despair as enforcement actions dropped and water pollution levels went up.

For nearly three decades, the 1972 act was broadly interpreted by the courts and federal regulators as shielding virtually all the waters of the United States from pollution and unregulated development — seasonal streams and small, remote wetlands, as well as lakes and large navigable waters. The basic idea was that small waters have some hydrological connection to larger watersheds and should be protected against pollution that would inevitably find its way downstream.

Then came two Supreme Court decisions that left uncertain which waterways were protected by the law. A 2001 decision suggested that the law applied only to large navigable waterways, while a 2006 ruling suggested that only waters with a “significant nexus” to navigable waterways could be protected. Those decisions — plus subsequent guidance from the George W. Bush administration — confused regulators and exposed millions of acres of wetlands and thousands of miles of streams to development.

The new guidelines now restore protections to small streams and wetlands that have a “physical, chemical or biological connection” to larger bodies of water downstream. That is good news with the clear caveat that they are administrative guidance, with no force in law, and subject to fairly easy reversal by another administration.

Legislation reaffirming the original scope of the law would be the best solution. But since that is not in the cards in this Congress, we urge the Environmental Protection Agency to turn the guidance into a formal rule that would, at least, be harder to undo.

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Santa Clara County supervisors ban plastic bags

4/26/11

In a sign of California's cultural creep away from reliance on the ubiquitous plastic shopping bag, Santa Clara County supervisors passed a sweeping ban Tuesday without a single naysayer from the public.

Earlier hearings on the county's two-year effort toward banning plastic carryout bags drew heated opposition from chambers of commerce, merchants and even chemical and oil producers.

But Tuesday's vote had just one opponent, the newest board member and lone Republican, Mike Wasserman, who spoke out for affected wineries and golf courses in his South County district. Wasserman said plastic bags don't really contribute all that much to pollution.

"I question an ordinance that would apply to only a handful of businesses, add unnecessary regulation at unknown costs, and, at the end of the day, only address 1 percent of the trash problem," Wasserman said in an interview.

The ban passed Tuesday takes effect Jan. 1 and will apply to businesses in the county's unincorporated area -- 56 retailers that hand out an estimated 32,000 plastic bags annually. Those retailers will not be able to dispense the plastic shopping bags, although plastic film used for meat, produce and baked goods will still be allowed.

To discourage over-reliance on paper bags, under the new law those bags cannot be distributed for free and must be sold for a minimum of 15 cents each. Stores in violation will be fined up to $500.

Santa Clara County joins a growing number of California cities and counties that have passed similar bans, including San Jose, Palo Alto, San Francisco, Fairfax, Marin, Los Angeles and Santa Monica. Following the failure of a bill in September that would have banned plastic bags statewide, municipal momentum has since grown in the region, where the cities of Sunnyvale, Milpitas and Mountain View are now in the early stages of considering bag bans.

At Tuesday's hearing, five speakers from environmental groups testified in favor of the ban. No one from the public expressed opposition.

Christopher Chin, director of the nonprofit Center for Oceanic Awareness, Research and Education, told the board that plastic bags are "like other things that seemed like a good idea at the time -- colonialism, asbestos."

But, he added, "They don't make sense anymore. We've evolved, and it's time to move on."

But Wasserman, a Los Gatos resident who noted that he drives a hybrid and, together with his wife, feeds two recycling bins each week, said the ordinance ignores voluntary progress toward recycling and reusing. "If you look around you, you can see change is happening," he said.

In contrast, Supervisors Liz Kniss, Ken Yeager and Dave Cortese said the ban is long overdue, and human habits -- much like smoking and talking on cellphones while driving -- are slow to change.

From behind the dais, Kniss held up the latest in reusable bag options, relying on a rare use of props in the normally staid supervisors' chamber.

Displaying colorful varieties and the convenient way a reusable bag can be collapsed into a purse or briefcase, Kniss indicated she was aware that critics will accuse the county of "nannyism."

But she said the ordinance is needed because "the biggest challenge, literally, is changing our culture."

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My Word: Happy Earth Day!

4/22/11

Good news for Humboldt County -- the Humboldt Waste Management Authority has committed to work on a county-wide single-use plastic bag ordinance. The ordinance will not only help reduce trash along our beaches and in the ocean, but will be set-up “buffet style” so that Humboldt County's cities and towns can choose what type of single-use plastic bag bans or fees best work for their jurisdiction.

AB 1998, a bill to ban single-use plastic bags from grocery stores in California, did not pass last year, but since the bill failed, we have seen cities and counties across the state respond with their own single-use plastic bag bans. The HWMA ordinance will add Humboldt County to the growing number of California cities and counties to ban plastic bags.

Plastic is an important part of our everyday life, but single-use plastic like the check-out bags at grocery stores and single-use plastic water bottles are a threat to our environment. Californians use 19 billion plastic bags every year, which generate 147,000 tons of plastic pollution. Humboldt County collected 1,500 pounds of trash in just three hours during Coastal Clean-Up Day in 2009 and most of the litter collected was plastic and cigarette butts.

Our plastic footprint has taken detrimental turns in the ocean with some sea water samples in the Pacific Ocean showing plastic particles out numbering plankton 46:1. As plastic floats along the surface of the water it photodegrades, meaning it breaks down into smaller and smaller pieces, but never goes away. That means the plastic bags you use at the check-out line will be around for your children's children's children and so on. Plastic particles in the ocean, called nurdles, resemble plankton and fish and other sea creatures mistake nurdles for food. When sea creatures eat plastic, their bodies don't get the nutrition they need and they starve to death. If they don't die, then they enter the food web filled with plastic -- big fish eats small fish and until it hits the end of the food chain -- us.

Plastic pollution is a monstrous environmental and human health issue -- so on this Earth Day take the minute to grab your re-usable bag and stay tuned for the plastic bag ordinance coming to your city and use your voice in support of the plastic bag ban!

Beth Werner is a coastal advocate for Humboldt Baykeeper. For more information on plastic bag pollution or the plastic bag ordinance in Humboldt County, contact Beth Werner at 268-8897 or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

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