Friends of Five Creeks' work improving the water quality and riparian habitat of small creeks flowing from the Berkeley Hills to San Francisco Bay is part of a much larger effort to protect and restore the San Francisco Bay - Delta estuary. The Bay-Delta estuary is a vast meeting of salt and fresh water, including all the runoff from the Central Valley carried by the Sacramento and San Joaquin River and their tributaries.
The estuary faces serious challenges from pollution (particularly urban runoff, heavy metals, and pesticides); lack of freshwater flows due to dams and diversion; invasive species; loss of habitat to fill, development, and dredging; and global climate change. Many millions of dollars are being spent to research
and ameliorate these problems, but success, or even progress, are far
from certain. Great strides have been made in protecting open space and protecting and restoring salt marshes and tide flats, but sprawling development and polluted urban runoff remain among the top challenges. Anti-pollution laws have greatly reduced pollution from sewage and industry. But Bay fish will remain unsafe to eat for generations due to hard-to-remove "legacy" pollutants such as mercury and PCBs, and there are growing threats from new pollutants including synthetic pyrethroids and products that mimic hormones. The Bay Area is home to 48 species listed as federally rare, threatened, or endangered; about a dozen more are already believed to be extinct. Aggressive non-native species have already transformed Bay ecosystems. As travel and trade shrink the world, threats such as Zebra mussels and the fungus that causes sudden oak death increase. Global warming may already have caused the near disappearance of salmon. Its forecast results seem likely to include water-supply disruptions from loss of the Sierra snowpack; greatly increased flooding from storms and high tides as sea levels rise; and loss of much of California's native-plant diversity as areas become too hot or too dry.
It's important to take action. Even getting an overview and perspective is a challenge. Here are some ways to start:
Advocacy organization such as Save the Bay, Baykeeper, California Native Plant Society, California Invasive Plant Council, the Sierra Club, Audubon Society, Center for Biological Diversity, Union of Concerned Scientists, Planning and Conservation League, and Environmental Working group have useful newsletters, magazines, websites, and especially listserves that keep you up to date on a variety of issues and enable you to take political action.
Bay Nature Magazine has excellent and beautifully illustrated articles, often focused on single issues. For subscriptions or back copies copies, call 925 372 6002. Toward a Healthy Bay, in the October 2003 issue, summarized many issues regarding restoration.
The San Francisco Estuary Project organizes the every-other-year State of the Estuary Conference (held in Oakland in fall), with published abstracts, reporting on recent research. SFEP also publishes an online newsletter.
The San Francisco Estuary Institute is a government-supported nonprofit aimed at developing scientific understanding needed for the San Francisco Estuary. It holds an annual conference on the Regional Monitoring Program and issues an annual report with somewhat technical overviews of sophisticated monitoring of pollution in the Estuary.
The San Francisco Bay Joint Venture is a federally mandated and supported partnership focused on wetlands restoration. Its website offers useful information on a variety of topics, including Avian influenza and West Nile virus, as well as videos and podcasts on a variety restoration-related projects and subjects.
Several agencies, including San Francisco Bay Joint Venture, San Francisco Estuary Institute, and UC Davis, have set out to create costly databases of restoration projects, but none builds on the efforts of others, none makes it possible to incorporate data from others, and none is complete or reliably maintained. For now, good but somewhat outdated maps of major wetlands restoration projects in tidal areas are online at www.swampthing.org.
The Bay Institute, an advocacy-oriented nonprofit, has issued a Bay Delta Ecological Scorecare, assigning A-F grades and trend indications in broad areas such as "fresh water inflow" and "food web." Summaries and the full technical report are on line.
Advocacy organizations such as Save the Bay, Baykeeper, California Native Plant Society, California Invasive Plant Council, the Sierra Club, Audubon Society, Center for Biological Diversity, Union of Concerned Scientists, Planning and Conservation League, and Environmental Working Group have useful newsletters, magazines, and especially listserves that keep you up to date on a wide variety of issues and enable you to take political action.
San Francisco Bay: Portrait of an Estuary, by John Hart and David Sanger, University of California Press, 2003, is a coffee-table book combining spectacular photographs, human-interest stories, and tough-minded history.
"Historical Distribution and Current Status of Steelhead, Coho Salmon, and Chinook Salmon in Streams of the San Francisco Estuary, California," the report on a multi-year research project by nonprofit CEMAR, is on line -- click on the link for the Bay Area Steelhead Project. Lots of good detail in the county-by-county reports. The short take-home message for restoration: concentrate on restoring steelhead, and the best prospects are in the North Bay.