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Riverside Restoration

The Bay will grow by about 46 acres on August 24 when a crane breaks through a levee to allow the tides to reclaim hayfields along the Petaluma River.

"This is the turning of the tide in terms of giving back to the Bay," says Richard Charter of the Sonoma Land Trust, which is involved in several North Bay efforts to restore wetlands long lost to agricultural and urban development.

Indeed, it was a South Bay developer's mitigation payment to the U.S. Army Corps that provided $100,000 of the approximately $250,000 allocated to reclaiming the Petaluma marsh. The Corps had planned to spend the money on South Bay restoration but high prices drove it north to Petaluma.

The Petaluma marsh, a project spearheaded by Cal Fish & Game, will be reclaimed passively. Because the river has a high sedimentation rate, officials expect the tidal marsh to be completely restored in five to seven years. By then, they hope the salt marsh harvest mouse, California clapper rail, salt marsh song sparrow and salt marsh yellow throat will return.

The prospect of attracting these dwindling species provided a strong argument for marsh restoration. During the planning stages, there was debate over whether the existing hayfields along the river should be preserved. The hayfields provide shorebird and waterfowl habitat during periods of normal or high rainfall, when seasonal ponds may occur.

Fish & Game's Carl Wilcox says that while seasonal wetlands such as hayfields should be part of the mix in long-term planning for the Bay ecosystem, the arguments for restoring tidal wetlands were much more compelling. "By returning them to tidal influence, they're functioning as wetlands 365 days a year and providing habitat for a broader array of fish and wildlife," says Wilcox.

Charter agrees. "Had the environmental community been active in the 1950s, when this parcel was drained, it would most certainly have prevented it. But now, we have to go back to the underlying concept of restoration. We're putting things back as closely as possible to the way nature made them."

Contact: Carl Wilcox (707)944-5525

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