Oldest Bay Area salt flat turned into wetland
Caroline Jones, SF Chronicle, September 14, 2011
A construction crew ripped through an old levee just south of the San Mateo Bridge, allowing water from Old Alameda Creek to flow into the Eden Landing salt flat for the first time since the 1850s. Eventually a levee to the west of that flat will be breached to reconnect the 630 acres to San Francisco Bay.
Tuesday's levee breach was the first salt-flat restoration in the East Bay. It is part of the 15,000-acre South Bay Salt Pond Restoration Project, the largest wetland restoration program on the Pacific Coast, which has so far been concentrated on the salt ponds around Alviso.
"These salt ponds took away the lungs of the Bay. Today we're giving them back," said Carl Wilcox, manager of the Bay-Delta region for the California Department of Fish and Game.
Salt flats have been a fixture of the shoreline at least since the Gold Rush. Ohlone Indians harvested salt along the waterfront, but then commercial outfits such as Leslie and later Cargill took over. In the late 1990s Cargill sold most of its Bay Area salt ponds to the state and federal governments for wetland restoration.
Read more here: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/09/14/MN8L1L44HA.DTL
Showing posts with label salt ponds. Show all posts
Showing posts with label salt ponds. Show all posts
Thursday, September 15, 2011
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Salt Pond Development Plans
A push for thousands of homes on bayland site
Jane Kay, SF Chronicle, May 19, 2009
DMB Associates of Scottsdale, Arizona, and Cargill Salt are expected to submit their plan to build as many as 12,000 houses on Cargill's 1,433-acre bayland property in Redwood City today, touching off a battle over development of one of the largest remaining chunks of restorable wetlands on San Francisco Bay.
The companies plan to design construction below sea level given projections of rising bay waters-up to 16 inches by 2050 and 4.5 feet by 2100. The plan envisions about 700 acres of houses and industrial and commercial development. Roughly 250 acres would be dedicated to parks, including an extension of the Bay Trail and other public access, and 440 acres would be returned to tidal marsh.
The developers hope to get approval from the city, the Bay Conservation Development Commission, and a host of agencies to break ground in 2013. The project would take 25 years to build.
Read the complete article here: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/05/19/BAQC17MN5P.DTL
Jane Kay, SF Chronicle, May 19, 2009
DMB Associates of Scottsdale, Arizona, and Cargill Salt are expected to submit their plan to build as many as 12,000 houses on Cargill's 1,433-acre bayland property in Redwood City today, touching off a battle over development of one of the largest remaining chunks of restorable wetlands on San Francisco Bay.
The companies plan to design construction below sea level given projections of rising bay waters-up to 16 inches by 2050 and 4.5 feet by 2100. The plan envisions about 700 acres of houses and industrial and commercial development. Roughly 250 acres would be dedicated to parks, including an extension of the Bay Trail and other public access, and 440 acres would be returned to tidal marsh.
The developers hope to get approval from the city, the Bay Conservation Development Commission, and a host of agencies to break ground in 2013. The project would take 25 years to build.
Read the complete article here: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/05/19/BAQC17MN5P.DTL
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