ESTUARY News Magazine

07/14/2023

Estuary News, a public interest magazine covering the preservation, management and restoration of the San Francisco Estuary for over thirty years, has ceased publication. Although there will be no further editions of the magazine, we are thrilled to be leaving you with an extraordinary, well-organized archive of our work and the stories you helped us tell.

Here, you can dig into the history of a topic, or explore a place, project, person, or policy you are interested in through time.
https://archive.estuarynews.org

Our archive includes more than 154 searchable PDFs from 1992-2023.
https://bit.ly/3XTQzF5

And twelve of the magazine's most seasoned reporters share their reflections on the magazine.
https://bit.ly/3PRdbE4

Keeping people connected to the wealth of information in Estuary's pages is important. If you can find a place on your website—perhaps in a resource list?—to remind folks about this great resource we'd appreciate it. ✨🙂
https://bit.ly/44v1XJR

05/09/2023

Restoration takes time.
In our final issue, you’ll find the stories of people who have dug their hands into the mud (in one way or another) for decades. Here's what they've learned:

From sticks to satellites: https://bit.ly/41fsl88
Waves of restoration: https://bit.ly/3LVWQdQ

05/03/2023

Healthy, replenished creeks 🤝 salmon & steelhead

Tiny, but mighty, these creeks are important for native fish 🐟
Read about them here 👇

Reconnecting Putah Creek with the ocean: https://bit.ly/3NSFj91

A Steelhead Renaissance in San Mateo Creek: https://bit.ly/3ARB2eg

05/02/2023

The untrained eye probably can’t tell the difference between the native and invasive cordgrass, but the ecosystem definitely can. After 17 years of tremendous effort, the natives are coming back!

Here’s how the San Francisco Estuary Invasive Spartina Project is making this happen:
https://bit.ly/411Xo7c

04/27/2023

Without more mud, restoring the Novato Baylands is a no-go 🙅‍♂️

"It really becomes this challenge of, 'Where does the sediment come from and how do we get it there?'"

Here’s how experts are trudging forward: https://bit.ly/3oPB0AI

04/26/2023

Environmental groups initially opposed building the San Francisco Bay Trail in the late '80s.

But now, 300+ miles in, authorities agree the trail provides sustainable and equitable access to open space.

Read more about the trail's progress and future:
https://bit.ly/3Vb09ln

04/20/2023

In our closing issue, we bring together a variety of voices to help our readers get a sense of the richness and variety of work to restore the Bay, Delta and watershed.

Listen to reflections from experts, here in our editor's final message to readers:

https://bit.ly/3mPhGTo

04/18/2023

When the restoration of Lookout Slough is complete, Lookout Slough will be no more.

It’s the largest restoration project in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, encompassing 3,400 acres of tidal wetlands.

Janet Byron describes the project in this restoration-focused final issue of Estuary News:
https://bit.ly/3L8aqeM

04/13/2023

How do you restore a wetland that keeps washing away? You come up with creative, nature-based solutions.

Restoring San Francisco Bay's Heron's Head:
http://bit.ly/3KAupkW

04/11/2023

The first generation of planners working on restoring the South Bay salt ponds joked about being “Marshists” or “Pondinistas.”

Of course, the trick is to define a balance.

After 20 years, the salt ponds are tipping toward a marshy future.

Read the story in this month's issue of Estuary News:
http://bit.ly/3KS6KxA

04/06/2023

Recent studies by Aquatic Research Collective scientists suggest restoring natural tidal action to managed wetlands is actually *not* always a good thing. Instead, ponds managed by duck clubs seem to be the most healthy for native fish species.

Read more about the complicated issue, skillfully explained by Aleta George in the final edition of Estuary News:
http://bit.ly/43emXEE

04/05/2023

Small shorebirds prefer mudflats. Dabbling ducks and larger waterbirds need shallow ponds. Tidal wetlands can support different species depending on how high the tide is.

"It’s a balancing act," Nathan Van Schmidt tells Estuary News reporter Janet Byron. "Which bird species will have more habitat in which type of wetlands restoration? We don’t know the answers to these questions. That’s why we’re out here monitoring."

Read more about what steps conservationists are taking to restore the San Francisco Bay and Delta for the millions of birds that visit the area, in our final issue of Estuary News.

https://bit.ly/431zpau

04/05/2023

For a hydrologist and civil engineer, there may be no better test on the resiliency of a shoreline restoration design than the 12 atmospheric rivers produced during California’s historic winter storm season. Such was the case at San Francisco’s Heron’s Head Shoreline Resilience Project, which just completed construction of a new 1,600-foot-long course gravel beach in December 2022.

Designed to be a dynamic landscape, the Heron’s Head Park demonstrates a nature-based approach to shoreline protection. We are happy to share that Project Engineer Edward Divita reports that the project “is working as expected,” with recent waves and high tides naturally reshaping the beach gravel to build a steeper and taller gravel berm that protects sensitive tidal ponds and marsh habitats. With the completion of recent post-construction planting and vegetation management led by the The Port of San Francisco and Literacy for Environmental Justice, the newly enhanced shoreline is well-suited to endure future challenges from Mother Nature over the coming decades.

Eddie recently spoke with ESTUARY News Magazine about this project and how its natural infrastructure elements demonstrate an innovative, nature-based approach to shoreline protection. Read the article here: https://archive.estuarynews.org/eroding-bayview-park-gets-heavy-lift/

04/03/2023

Bouldin Island in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, currently lies between 20 and 25 feet below sea level and is estimated to have lost nearly half a billion cubic feet of land volume in the last 40 years. At Bouldin and many other Delta islands, land managers are racing to develop a more sustainable design before sea-level rise and acts of nature turn them into artificial lakes.

The effort led by Southern California's Metropolitan Water District has turned into an unprecedented collaboration between the District and separate/public community restoration efforts.

Read the full story here:

https://bit.ly/3m6GGW4

03/30/2023

The Clear Lake hitch could soon become the fifth species to go extinct within Lake County’s Clear Lake. Few people even know this plain looking fish exists, “but for Tribes the hitch is sacred,” explains Big Valley Band of Pomo Indians tribal elder Ron Montez, Sr.
Now, multiple community groups and agencies are involved in saving the fish. It's a complicated effort, expertly explained by Dr.
Jeanine Pfeiffer for this final issue of Estuary News.

http://bit.ly/40vuvAQ

03/28/2023

In this special Almanac of Restoration, Estuary News celebrates restoration in all its forms and samples projects of every kind. We start high up in the watersheds with rivers, lakes and creeks, move into the Delta, and then explore San Francisco Bay.

http://bit.ly/40r3v5M

We look for results: did the birds and fish come back? And we delve deep into some of the latest iterations of restoration: centering equity in access to open space; combining flood control with habitat creation in multi-benefit projects; responding to sea level rise with nature-based solutions.

The field of restoration, here in our Estuary, reflects myriad fascinating nuances. So it seems an appropriate topic for our final issue. After 30 years of publication, this is our swansong. Look for a final newsletter in June with information about how to continue to access our archives. It's been a privilege to tell your stories.

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.

11/29/2022

Salmon can thrive in a river that ran dry for 60 years—but only if we keep our promise to restore it. “We’ve shown the naysayers that it is very much possible to bring back this population, but you’ve...

10/13/2022

Our final issue of 2022 features Central Valley salmon, two tales of river restoration, challenges in monitoring stormwater contamination, insider info on harmful algal blooms, and much more.

Read the issue online, and sign up to receive free print copies: https://bit.ly/3rZ0F89

05/18/2022

02/15/2022

Our February special issue on fish is live! Stories of fins and scutes, smelt and salmon, gut rot and egg loss, and the myriad fishes tracked, tagged, trawled and hatched in the .

You can explore the individual articles at https://bit.ly/3BneLUK. However, and our editorial team hopes folks will view this special themed issue, which features exclusive illustrations by Adi Khen, as a whole by viewing it as a magazine PDF (https://bit.ly/33m31p0) or by ordering a FREE print copy.

To get a one-time print copy mailed to your home or office, just email the address to [email protected] with subject line "Requesting print copy of February 2022 issue." Or, you can fill out the form at https://bit.ly/3BneLUK if you'd like to subscribe to receive all issues of Estuary News Magazine in print (3 per year, and entirely free).

12/06/2021

For , we're looking back at some of the dirtiest and muddiest stories we've covered in recent years that highlight how important and intriguing soil can be (stories linked in comments)

10/25/2021

Our final edition of 2021 is live!

Check out our coverage of Hill Slough, Dutch Slough and Pacheco Marsh opening to tides this fall, how research on Bay nutrients carried on in a garage during COVID restrictions, cows trampling creeks, and EBMUD efforts to sustain groundwater. Other topics include bird interactions with floating solar arrays, 150 years on patrol with California Department of Fish and Wildlife, and the October Estuary Summit .

https://bit.ly/3vHumvM

As always, you can sign up to receive FREE quarterly print editions and/or the online PDF, as well as occasional between-issue news and insights at https://archive.estuarynews.org/estuary-news/subscribe/

09/23/2021

National is the perfect time to celebrate our endemic (found nowhere else) endangered species, like the salt marsh harvest mouse! This little guy is found only in the marshes around San Francisco Bay. These mice are great swimmers and can drink salt water, and during the summer they prefer to dine on pickleweed, which tastes like--wait for it--pickles!

ESTUARY News Magazine covered recent and surprising findings on the salt marsh harvest mouse, which were shared at our 2019 State of the Estuary Conference (registration is now open for this year's event): https://www.sfestuary.org/estuary-news-not-so-picky-marsh-mouse/

06/25/2021

Today marks the retirement of "Coast Whisperer" Sam Shuchat, director of the California State Coastal Conservancy, after 20 years of service. Our editor in chief interviewed Shuchat to bring you insights on coastal access, advocacy, equity, and much more. You can listen to and share the interview in podcast form, and read it online or in our print edition:

https://soundcloud.com/user-346725849/estuary-voices-the-coast-whisperer

https://www.sfestuary.org/estuary-news-coast-whisperer-sam-schuchat/

Ariel Rubissow Okamoto interviews the Conservancy’s Sam Schuchat upon his retirement June 2021 (clips from a longer interview).

06/18/2021

Our summer issue is live! 👇

https://bit.ly/3gyT4Za

Digging deeper is the theme in this issue as Estuary managers and scientists scrutinize their options and check their restoration work in light of a drier, hotter, more hungry , , and entire system.

This June, we explore:
-Water solutions 💧
-Why Bay fish still aren’t good eating despite chemical bans 🐟
-How Delta fish are still hungry (but food may lurk in the shipping channel) 🍽
-The mechanics of delivering more mud to marshes that need to adapt to sea level rise 🌊
-Moving the Bay Trail inland 🌁
-Building taller ballparks for stormwater retention ⚾️
-Thinking like a beaver 🧑‍🚒
-Clearing the deadwood in watersheds 🌳

And more! Enjoy and subscribe for FREE at the link in our bio :)

05/18/2021

For a hawk’s-eye view of one of the Estuary’s most ambitious restoration efforts, visit the Dutch Slough Tidal Marsh Habitat Restoration Project’s YouTube channel. Drone-shot footage shows what the Department of Water Resources has been doing on 1,200 acres of former wetland, converted to past...

05/08/2021

Happy ! ESTUARY loves a good bird story, and our reporter Joe Eaton writes most of them with great care for both birds and words, while photographer Rick Lewis always has his lens aimed at the feathers flying overhead or dipping in the water. Today we're highlighting three stories about migratory birds in the environment:

https://www.sfestuary.org/estuary-news-three-great-migration-stories/

"Like water rains down and flows, spreads and seeps through an Estuary, touching the land along its path, so too do birds migrate across our planet."

04/29/2021

All 24 of our Bay Delta Science Conference pearls (curated roundups of the biggest takeaways) are now available to view online! The theme was Building Resilience through Diversity in Science.

Read our bite-sized highlights at http://sfestuary.org/estuary-news-pearls

Top Photo: Dr. Levi Lewis holding a white sturgeon in the Delta, by Jim Ervin

Bottom Left: Map shows areas of strongest climate change influence throughout the Delta. Map courtesy of Andrew Schwarz; photo by Rick Lewis.

Bottom Right: Tanks support dense reedy thickets grown from cubes of peaty Delta loam, by Curt Schmutte

04/22/2021

If you missed the Bay Delta Science Conference last week (themed "Building Resilience Through Diversity in Science,") our reporters have you covered! Check out these "pearls," our curated highlights from the conference's research and presentations, and stay tuned for more coming out next week.

Today's batch, with a theme of "Food, Fish, and Wildlife" ➡️https://www.sfestuary.org/mega-pearls-bay-delta-science-conference-april-2021-fish-birds/

And our earlier set, "Human Dimensions of Delta Science" ➡️https://www.sfestuary.org/bay-delta-science-conference-mega-pearls-april-2021/

San Francisco Estuary Partnership

04/22/2021

Thanks for sharing Robert and Patricia Switzer Foundation!

This , let's recommit to making the and an equitable and accessible space for all.

I live just a couple miles from Berkeley Aquatic Park, but it took a shelter-in-place order to get me to go back there after a 20-year hiatus. I had visited the park a couple years after I moved to the Bay Area and found it deserted and a bit gloomy. This time, it was vibrant and full of life, from....

04/22/2021

04/01/2021

Did you know that the Estuary Blueprint, which covers all aspects of environmental restoration in the San Francisco Bay/ Sacramento Delta, is being updated for the third time right now? Our reporter Cariad Hayes Thronson dives in with an article AND podcast episode 😃✍️🎙

https://www.sfestuary.org/estuary-news-catching-up-estuary-blue-print-update/

The San Francisco Estuary Partnership’s next update to its 2016 Comprehensive Conservation and Management Plan for the Estuary—or Estuary Blueprint—will bring a new focus on equity and environmental justice to ongoing efforts to restore and protect the Bay and Delta.

03/24/2021

Our spring 2021 issue is here, right on the heels of ! 🥳 💧Read up on the latest oil spill in the SF Bay, whether beavers make good neighbors, an unexpected boon in wildfire recovery, a planned solo kayak excursion from Monterey to Hawaii, and much more—or sign up to receive print copies here: https://www.sfestuary.org/estuary-news/subscribe/

https://www.sfestuary.org/estuary-news-/estuary-news-march-2021

12/07/2020

As organizations and agencies scramble to preserve the Central Valley’s dwindling Chinook salmon runs, a group of scientists believes they may be overlooking a key factor in the decades-long decline of the fish: disease.

In a paper published in September’s issue of San Francisco Estuary and Watershed Science, a research team proposes that diseases—caused by viruses, bacteria and other microbes—could be suppressing juvenile salmon survival in a river system that once hosted millions of adult spawners each year.

Learn more ➡️ https://www.sfestuary.org/decline-of-salmon-disease/

11/19/2020

Water primrose is one of the newest aquatic weeds rearranging the Delta. Dr. Shruti Khanna talks about how remote sensing can help us manage invaders in a new Science-in-Short podcast - film teaser below.

Full podcast ➡️ https://www.sfestuary.org/science-in-short-podcast-shruti-khanna-remote-sensing/

11/12/2020

PODCAST: Wall-to-Wall Sampling Via Remote Sensing w/ Dr. Shruti Khanna

Invasive plants – the submerged and floating kind – clog nearly a third of the Delta’s waterways today. These alien weeds invite native fish predators to hide in their murky jungles, fuel algal blooms, rearrange the ecosystem, and prevent boats from passing through.

But California Department of Fish and Wildlife senior scientist Shruti Khanna is keeping an eye on the spread of these Delta weeds from above. In a new Science-in-Short podcast, Khanna explains how large images captured by remote sensors mounted on satellites, aircraft, or drones afford wall-to-wall sampling of the Delta.

Listen to her Science-in-Short interview

➡️https://www.sfestuary.org/science-in-short-podcast-shruti-khanna-remote-sensing/

Above/Photo: Khanna examines invasive water primrose in Putah Creek in Yolo Bypass. Photo: Amber Manfree

Maven Delta Stewardship Council San Francisco Estuary Partnership

11/09/2020

A Fragile Fleet

Watching Bay-Delta science unfold, we take for granted the modest fleet of research vessels that keeps it all going. But, like many of the systems that quietly sustain our society, this one is showing signs of strain.

Many vessels, or “hulls” in the language of the field, are approaching the end of their useful lives. Like an old car, an old boat starts having problems two and three at a time. Take the case of the RV Longfin, launched in 1983 and vital to generations of Bay studies.

“It’s one thing after the next,” says Steve Culberson of the Interagency Ecological Program. “As soon as you fix the hydraulics, the exhaust manifold goes down. We’re using scotch tape and baling wire to hold these things together. You need to buy a couple of $1.5- to 2-million-dollar boats every decade to keep the information coming.”

A longer-term dream is to band together to buy, staff and maintain one or more capable boats for all to share. This option looks even farther off now than it did in pre-COVID days.

Read the complete article by reporter John Hart in Estuary News. https://www.sfestuary.org/estuary-news-a-fragile-fleet/

Partners: IEP at California Department of Water Resources, San Francisco Estuary Partnership. San Francisco Estuary Institute / Aquatic Science Center, California Department of Fish and Wildlife, U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), Estuary & Ocean Science Center - San Francisco State University

11/02/2020

“I am more excited about this than I have been about pretty much anything else in my career,” says Randy Mager of the California Department of Water Resources.

The subject of his palpable excitement is a 25-foot long pontoon boat with a gaping table-size hole cut into the boat’s flat floor. Once a Lake Shasta houseboat, the boat has been so radically changed that the only remaining original parts are the steering console and instrument panel.

The new fish monitoring boat is capable of something never done before: combining video technology and DNA analysis to get a clearer picture of what is swimming below the boat in the Delta’s murky shallows.

Fish aren’t captured or handled — they simply pass through a water-filled chute under the boat and get clocked by cameras and DNA shed into the water. “Before it was like doing santeria on the Delta,” laughs Gregg Schumer of Cramer Fish Sciences, joking that early on his DNA presentation audiences consisted of his mother and one other person. “Now, the rooms are packed.”

Read the complete story by reporter Isaac Pearlman in Estuary News: https://www.sfestuary.org/estuary-news-retrofitted-houseboat-ids-fish-in-the-shallows/

10/22/2020

Nursing Salmon on Flooded Farms

In 2012 a team of salmon researchers tried a wild idea: putting pinky-sized Chinook on a rice field in the Yolo Bypass, a vast engineered floodplain designed to protect the city of Sacramento from inundation. Floodplains once served as nurseries for young salmon migrating from mountain streams to the ocean.

Today, however, most of the low-lying land along California rivers is leveed and farmed. “We’re looking for creative solutions — can we make farming more fish friendly?” asks Ted Sommers, lead author of a new paper in San Francisco Estuary and Watershed Science.

The goal is to balance keeping fish on fields long enough to maximize the floodplain benefits with releasing fish while there’s still enough water to make it to the Delta. “You need to look at the system as a whole, track the forecast, and time the migration to conditions,” says Carson Jefferies, co-author of the paper.

Read the complete story by reporter Robin Meadows in Estuary News: https://www.sfestuary.org/estuary-news-nursing-salmon-on-flooded-farms/ Photo: Jak Wonderly

Partners: California Department of Water Resources, California Rice Commission, Delta Stewardship Council, UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences, California Trout