As Executive Project Manager of the South Bay Salt Ponds Restoration Project, Dave Halsing brings more than 11 years of experience in environmental consulting to the South Bay Salt Pond Restoration Project. At firms including Environmental Science Associates, AECOM, and URS, he has worked on or managed environmental and infrastructure management, restoration, and enhancement projects in and around San Francisco Bay. In seven of those years, he worked on various aspects of the South Bay Salt Pond Restoration Project, including its Phase 2 alternatives development, design, environmental analysis documents, and permitting. In the last two years, he worked as a deputy to his predecessor, John Bourgeois, helping to keep all the Project’s pieces in motion while collaborating with the Project Management Team and project partners. Other project work relevant to the Restoration Project involved San Francisco Bay habitat restoration or enhancement, public infrastructure, regulatory processes, alternatives development, and stakeholder or public engagement.
Prior to his consulting career, Dave was a research scientist at the U.S. Geological Survey in Menlo Park. His work focused on integrating economics, spatial data, and decision sciences into the natural and physical sciences that were the USGS’ primary focus. Dave has a Bachelor’s Degree in Biology from Stanford University and a Master of Science in Natural Resource Policy from the University of Michigan’s School of Natural Resources and Environment. He brings a strong project management background and a multidisciplinary approach to this challenging, multi-objective, multi-stakeholder project.
Hi all – and Happy World Wetlands Day!
Crazy that it’s almost spring already, right? And just as time marches on, things here in Salty Dave’s Wetland Weblog World continue to roll along as well, in spite of sad news like the disappointing Golden State Warriors season.
Those of us who work on environmental projects in and around the edges of San Francisco Bay experienced a meaningful loss last week.
Hello – and welcome back for another saunter through Salty Dave’s labyrinth of thoughts.
This time around, we’re going to start off with a few questions, invite you to a birthday party, and end with two poems (don’t skip to the end…).
First, the questions:
I remember when I turned 20...Barely.
That’s partly because it was a long time ago, but mostly it’s because I had a fake ID and the world was just…different then, okay? Don’t judge. Corona had just arrived in the U.S., Jimmy Buffett still had a moustache and wasn’t yet a cliche, and the Shoreline Amphitheater was right there! What was I supposed to do?
What’s a super-important day that happens in the middle of each April?
No, not that day!
I am thinking of a way better day than that. More fun that that, more uplifting than that, and generally more eagerly anticipated than that by all but green-eyeshade-wearing accounting professionals.*
I’m referring, of course, to Earth Day!
Once again here at Salty Dave’s Wetland Weblog, it’s time to tackle one of the most common questions I get.* You can find other posts about common questions here.
Today’s set of questions:
In the late 1980’s, I spent some time working at a Lehman Brothers office on Montgomery Street. So, until recently, when I heard the word “broker,” I thought of suspenders, slicked-back hair, and dress shirts with white collars even when the shirts themselves are blue or pink.
What I certainly did not think of were work boots, hard hats, and enormous piles of dirt.
Birthdays are funny things, aren’t they?
Well, hi, and welcome back!
In my previous post (available here), I described the difficult balancing act we face in trying to restore as much tidal marsh as possible, while protecting and enhancing enough nesting habitat for breeding western snowy plover that their local populations would be maintained or grow.
It’s a little before 7 a.m. on a clear and brisk morning in July. The sun is just peeking up over the hills of the East Bay, and I’m running across the uneven salt-and-gypsum crust of a dry former salt-production pond, jumping across slough traces and trying not to step on the mounds of dense vegetation that pose serious ankle-roll potential.
One of my goals in 2022 (only partially satisfied) has been to remember to notice and appreciate the things that are mundane and common but that are impressive, important, beautiful, or just cool to think about.
In that latter category is the concept of a watershed.
Remember craigslist?
Seems like a million years ago, and it was definitely pre-social media, but craigslist was a virtually free online, geographically oriented marketplace for housing, vehicles, furniture, recreation equipment, dates, and whatever else. Back in the day, I found one apartment, multiple housemates, and a bicycle using craigslist, and it didn’t cost me a thing.
If you’ve been reading this blog at all – and I know that you have Mom, so don’t try to deny it – you know that we feel strongly about the importance of partnerships to the success of our Project.
If you work in the environmental field long enough, it becomes easy to forget that not everyone starts with the same understandings or intuitions that we do. For example, when I talk with members of the public or the media, I sometimes skip right over the “why” of what we are doing so I can get right to the “what,” the “when,” and the ”how” of it.
Coastal communities around the world are facing increased coastal flooding and shoreline erosion from factors such as sea-level rise and unsustainable development practices.
We’re trying something new here at Salty Dave’s Wetland Weblog: a two-author post! The topic below is so interesting that we needed two people to cover it. I’m joined by Julie Beagle, Environmental Planning Section Chief in the San Francisco District of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. I’ve used my usual imprecise language in the plain text below, and Julie has weighed in with corrections and clarifications to make the story more complete. Her words are in italics. I am grateful for Julie’s work with me on this.
If you’ve been out to the City of Menlo Park’s Bedwell Bayfront Park recently, you have probably noticed that there is quite a bit going on there.
If you were one of the intrepid few who ventured over to Salty Dave’s Wetland Weblog a few weeks ago and read the piece about our Phase 2 project at the Island Ponds, you know how excited we are to be underway there.
But now, I have a question for you:
What’s better than having a project site in construction?
Did you ever have one of those sneezes that takes a long time to happen?