Before the East Bay Regional Park District completed the Encinal Dune Restoration and Shoreline Stabilization Project in December 2020, this tucked-away beach frequented by locals and harbor seal enthusiasts needed some love. The ice plant that dominated the low-flung dune offered little sustenance to fauna; the beach required more sand; the washed-up creosote-treated timber was strewn about like a giant game of pick-up sticks; and the large, rusty barge that buttressed a short section of the San Francisco Bay Trail had become dangerous.
The nearly two-acre project site in the shape of an arrowhead includes Encinal Beach, the dune behind it, and a short section of the Bay Trail. Encinal Beach and its adjacent dune formed after the U.S. Navy installed a mile-long rock jetty in the 1940s off the southeastern shore of the Naval Air Station, now Alameda Point.
Restored site. Photo courtesy Carmen Erasmus.
To improve this locally loved site, East Bay Parks came up with a plan to “nourish” the beach and dune into a more natural condition and to improve recreational access. District landscape architect Carmen Erasmus and district fishery biologist Joe Sullivan identified a series of restoration steps and associated materials necessary to achieve these goals.
First the District trucked in medium-grain sand to elevate the beach and reduce the frequency of dune inundation during extreme high tides. At currently predicted estimates of sea-level rise, this measure should last for about 50 years. The nourished beach also improves non-motorized boat launching access to the San Francisco Bay Water Trail. Oakland’s Hanson Aggregates supplied the beach sand after extracting it from Point Knox Shoal in the San Francisco Bay.
In another important restoration step, the District weeded the ice plant matting the dune, brought in virgin marine sand from the Bay to raise it, and sculpted hillocks to enhance plant and wildlife habitat.
Next, workers seeded the dune hillocks with native plants and grasses such as pink sand verbena, beach evening primrose, and California poppies. As soon as they planted the seeds, rock pigeons swooped in for a feast. “Even with the pigeon feeding, we are hopeful the area will fill in as designed, given the current new growth,” says Erasmus.
Building the dunes at Encinal. Photo courtesy Carmen Erasmus.
Removing the creosote-treated logs required that East Bay Parks scoop them up and take them to a landfill licensed to handle creosote-contaminated waste. The old barge used for stabilization had become rusty and eroded with sharp edges. “The barge popped right out, and there weren’t any hazardous materials underneath it,” says Sullivan gratefully. After removing the barge, the next step was buttressing a short section of the Bay Trail with riprap that Dutra Materials supplied from a San Rafael rock quarry. It was tested and certified as being free of clay and other organic matter. “Replacing the rusty barge with rock provides better habitat for shellfish,” says Sullivan.
These improvements brought a total of 340 dump trucks full of sand and rock to the site, according to Erasmus. All the work near the waterline was done at low tide to protect water quality.
East Bay Parks’ finishing touches involved improving recreational access and enhancing habitat. Workers repaved a section of the Bay Trail, installed a split-rail fence to protect the dune, and planted coast live oak, toyon, and ceanothus behind the new bathrooms that, along with two new boat launching ramps for motorized vessels, were installed by the City of Alameda.
This project has been on the District’s wish list for at least ten years, but funds and permits were difficult to assemble until 2016. The San Francisco Bay Restoration Authority contributed $450,000 to the $1.1 million project, using local tax dollars from Measure AA, the San Francisco Bay Clean Water, Pollution Prevention, and Habitat Restoration measure passed by voters in 2016. East Bay Parks, which leases the land from the City of Alameda, matched that amount with funds from Measure WW, approved by voters in Alameda and Contra Costa counties in 2008. A grant from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation also contributed $200,000 to the effort.
Mother and son stop on the Bay Trail to study the seals. Photo: Richard Bangert
To report this story, I visited Encinal Beach in February and found people enjoying the site on an unseasonably warm weekday. Kids played on the beach and in the water; kayakers launched from the beach and paddled around Seaplane Lagoon; and masked cyclists, runners, and recreational walkers made good use of the repaved trail.
To check out a rare treat in Seaplane Lagoon, I walked west on the Bay Trail for a short distance to view a harbor seal float anchored 300 feet from the shoreline. The float was installed in 2016 by the Water Emergency Transportation Authority to mitigate the loss of an old wharf used by seals that was being removed for new docks.
I learned from the Alameda Point Harbor Seal Monitors Facebook page that this is the only custom-built haul out designed for harbor seals in the world. The raft has a sloped end to make it easier for the seals to get out and warm their blubber, something they need to do for survival. Since 2016, volunteer monitors have counted and recorded the number of seals that use the raft daily. When people were social-distancing on December 14, 2020, a record number of 86 seals piled onto the 500-square-foot raft.
With more people using the shoreline during the pandemic, the City of Alameda started receiving complaints that some kayakers were paddling too close to the seals. City managers asked the monitors to help them develop signs to remind paddlers to keep a distance of at least 300 feet from the raft, especially during pupping season from March to July. Unlike the boisterous and seemingly entitled sea lions at San Francisco’s Fishermen’s Wharf, harbor seals spook easily, and if they continually feel threatened at their haul-out site, they won’t return. That loss would be significant, as it is the only spot in the East Bay between Yerba Buena Island and Newark where they haul out. It would also be a loss for people.
“There’s a whole universe of wildlife below the water surface, and here you can walk down a public trail and see the seals with your naked eye,” says volunteer monitor Richard Bangert. “It helps people connect to the marine ecosystem of the Bay.”
Now that the pandemic is sending so many more in search of open air and nature, voters’ investments in shoreline improvements are proving more valuable than ever.
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Hothouse Earth
By Ariel Rubissow Okamoto
Photo by Megan Nguyen
Nothing could be stranger than sitting in the dark with thousands of suits and heels, watching a parade of promises to decarbonize from companies and countries large and small, reeling from the beauties of big screen rainforests and indigenous necklaces, and getting all choked up.
It was day two of the September 2018 Global Climate Action Summit in San Francisco when I felt it.
At first I wondered if I was simply starstruck. Most of us labor away trying to fix one small corner of the planet or another without seeing the likes of Harrison Ford, Al Gore, Michael Bloomberg, Van Jones, Jerry Brown – or the ministers or mayors of dozens of cities and countries – in person, on stage and at times angry enough to spit. And between these luminaries a steady stream of CEOs, corporate sustainability officers, and pension fund managers promising percentages of renewables and profits in their portfolios dedicated to the climate cause by 2020-2050.
I tried to give every speaker my full attention: the young man of Vuntut Gwichin heritage from the edge of the Yukon’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge who pleaded with us not to enter his sacred lands with our drills and dependencies; all the women – swathed in bright patterns and head-scarfs – who kept punching their hearts. “My uncle in Uganda would take 129 years to emit the same amount of carbon as an American would in one year,” said Oxfam’s Winnie Byanyima.
“Our janitors are shutting off the lights you leave on,” said Aida Cardenas, speaking about the frontline workers she trains, mostly immigrants, who are excited to be part of climate change solutions in their new country.
The men on the stage, strutting about in feathers and pinstripes, spoke of hopes and dreams, money and power. “The notion that you can either do good or do well is a myth we have to collectively bust,” said New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy whose state is investing heavily in offshore wind farms.
“Climate change isn’t just about risks, it’s about opportunities,” said Blackrock sustainable investment manager Brian Deese.
But it wasn’t all these fine speeches that started the butterflies. Halfway through the second day of testimonials, it was a slight white-haired woman wrapped in an azure pashmina that pricked my tears. One minute she was on the silver screen with Alec Baldwin and the next she taking a seat on stage. She talked about trees. How trees can solve 30% of our carbon reduction problem. How we have to stop whacking them back in the Amazon and start planting them everywhere else. I couldn’t help thinking of Dr. Seuss and his truffala trees. Jane Goodall, over 80, is as fierce as my Lorax. Or my daughter’s Avatar.
Analyzing my take home feeling from the event I realized it wasn’t the usual fear – killer storms, tidal waves, no food for my kids to eat on a half-baked planet – nor a newfound sense of hope – I’ve always thought nature will get along just fine without us. What I felt was relief. People were actually doing something. Doing a lot. And there was so much more we could do.
As we all pumped fists in the dark, as the presentations went on and on and on because so many people and businesses and countries wanted to STEP UP, I realized how swayed I had let myself be by the doomsday news mill.
“We must be like the river, “ said a boy from Bangladesh named Risalat Khan, who had noticed our Sierra watersheds from the plane. “We must cut through the mountain of obstacles. Let’s be the river!”
Or as Harrison Ford less poetically put it: “Let’s turn off our phones and roll up our sleeves and kick this monster’s ass.”
4th California Climate Change Assessment Blues
by Isaac Pearlman
Since California’s last state-led climate change assessment in 2012, the Golden State has experienced a litany of natural disasters. This includes four years of severe drought from 2012 to 2016, an almost non-existent Sierra Nevada snowpack in 2014-2015 costing $2.1 billion in economic losses, widespread Bay Area flooding from winter 2017 storms, and extremely large and damaging wildfires culminating with this year’s Mendocino Complex fire achieving the dubious distinction of the largest in state history. California’s most recent climate assessment, released August 27th, predicts that for the state and the Bay Area, we can expect even more in the future.
The California state government first began assessing climate impacts formally in 2006, due to an executive order by Governor Schwarzenegger. California’s latest iteration and its fourth overall, includes a dizzying array of 44 technical reports; three topical studies on climate justice, tribal and indigenous communities, and the coast and ocean; as well as nine region-specific analyses.
The results are alarming for our state’s future: an estimated four to five feet of sea level rise and loss of one to two-thirds of Southern California beaches by 2100, a 50 percent increase in wildfires over 25,000 acres, stronger and longer heat waves, and infrastructure like airports, wastewater treatment plants, rail and roadways increasingly likely to suffer flooding.
For the first time, California’s latest assessment dives into climate consequences on a regional level. Academics representing nine California regions spearheaded research and summarized the best available science on the variable heat, rain, flooding and extreme event consequences for their areas. For example, the highest local rate of sea level rise in the state is at the rapidly subsiding Humboldt Bay. In San Diego county, the most biodiverse in all of California, preserving its many fragile and endangered species is an urgent priority. Francesca Hopkins from UC Riverside found that the highest rate of childhood asthma in the state isn’t an urban smog-filled city but in the Imperial Valley, where toxic dust from Salton Sea disaster chokes communities – and will only become worse as higher temperatures and less water due to climate change dry and brittle the area.
According to the Bay Area Regional Report, since 1950 the Bay Area has already increased in temperature by 1.7 degrees Fahrenheit and local sea level is eight inches higher than it was one hundred years ago. Future climate will render the Bay Area less suitable for our evergreen redwood and fir forests, and more favorable for tolerant chaparral shrub land. The region’s seven million people and $750 billion economy (almost one-third of California’s total) is predicted to be increasingly beset by more “boom and bust” irregular wet and very dry years, punctuated by increasingly intense and damaging storms.
Unsurprisingly, according to the report the Bay Area’s intensifying housing and equity problems have a multiplier affect with climate change. As Bay Area housing spreads further north, south, and inland the result is higher transportation and energy needs for those with the fewest resources available to afford them; and acute disparity in climate vulnerability across Bay Area communities and populations.
“All Californians will likely endure more illness and be at greater risk of early death because of climate change,” bluntly states the statewide summary brochure for California’s climate assessment. “[However] vulnerable populations that already experience the greatest adverse health impacts will be disproportionately affected.”
“We’re much better at being reactive to a disaster than planning ahead,” said UC Berkeley professor and contributing author David Ackerly at a California Adaptation Forum panel in Sacramento on August 27th. “And it is vulnerable communities that suffer from those disasters. How much human suffering has to happen before it triggers the next round of activity?”
The assessment’s data is publicly available online at “Cal-adapt,” where Californians can explore projected impacts for their neighborhoods, towns, and regions.
The results are alarming for our state’s future: an estimated four to five feet of sea level rise and loss of one to two-thirds of Southern California beaches by 2100, a 50 percent increase in wildfires over 25,000 acres, stronger and longer heat waves, and infrastructure like airports, wastewater treatment plants, rail and roadways increasingly likely to suffer flooding.