Remembering and Thanking Dianne Feinstein
Those of us who work on environmental projects in and around the edges of San Francisco Bay experienced a meaningful loss last week.
November 2023
A Boat-side View of Restoring South Bay Tidal Marshes
It’s time for another guest post! We are lucky to get a boater’s-eye view of our restoring tidal marshes from Jim Ervin, who writes a monthly nature blog for UC Davis, a summary of eyewitness observations from the boat used by UC Davis fish scientists as they cruise up and down the Coyote Creek and around Alviso marshes and sloughs trawling to monitor fish. Jim takes the photos and develops maps to track the outcomes of the university’s fish monitoring crew.
Bird Watching
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:
Almost Old Enough to Buy Beer
I remember when I turned 20...Barely.
That Big Day in April
What’s a super-important day that happens in the middle of each April?
No, not that day!
What’s that Smell? Are You Going to Fix It?
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:
Our Friend, The Dirt Broker
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.
Let’s Celebrate a Milestone Birthday for the Refuge!
Birthdays are funny things, aren’t they?
50 Steps to Count Your Plover
Well, hi, and welcome back!
I Need a Plover*
It’s a little before 7 a.m. on a clear and brisk morning in July.
Musings on Watersheds
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.
Remaking the Connections
Remember craigslist?
A New Technique to Scale Up Our Revegetation Efforts
In my most recent blog post, I wrote about what habitat transition zones are, why these slopes rising from tidal marsh are important parts of our Restoration Project, and introduced Save The Bay’s
Another Partnership: Save The Bay
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.
Memo to Self: Remember to Tell People Why Tidal Marsh Restoration Matters
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.
A Simpatico Science Symposium
Hi Everyone! Donna Ball, Project Lead Scientist here. Dave is out in the field taking pictures of heavy machinery moving massive amounts of dirt (you’ve seen the pictures in his prior posts) or some such activity.
A Slick Strategy for Spiking Sediment Supply*
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.
A Kayak Trip to the Island Ponds
At long last, we have our very first guest post here at Salty Dave’s Wetland Weblog! There is an exciting story below, and I’m doing my best not to spoil it.
Collaboration Is the Key
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.
And More Construction!
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:
Construction!!!
Did you ever have one of those sneezes that takes a long time to happen?
A Beach by Any Other Name
There has been a lot of talk lately in the Bay Area’s restoration community about including gravel beaches in restoration projects.
Another Common Question: Why does restoration take SO LONG?
I noticed the other day that the planning for Phase 2 of the South Bay Salt Pond Restoration Project began in 2012. Putting that in context:
Wait…Are Salt Ponds Good or Bad?
Hi and welcome back!
One goal of this blog was listing the Top Ten Questions I get about this Restoration Project. You can check out previous entries on that list here. Here’s a question from the rest of the Top 10.
Common Questions: Where Can I Bring My…
Where can I bring my dog? My drone? My bike? My…self?
These are common – and important – questions. The explanations and reasoning behind the answers are at least as important as the answers themselves. I’m trying to tighten up these entries, so let’s dive right in…
What Are You Going to Do About Sea Level Rise? Part 2
In our last entry here at Salty Dave’s Wetland Weblog (still hoping for some better name suggestions…), I wrote about sea level rise and related aspects of coastal flood management and adaptation.
The Next Most Common Question: What Are You Going to Do About Sea Level Rise?
After covering a few other topics in my blog entries, I thought this would be a good time to revisit another in the list of common questions I get from students, media, and other interested people.
Subtle Beauty
I’m a native of San Francisco, and I lived in various spots on the Peninsula until I was almost 40 years old. Over most of that time, the Bay was just a thing I had to drive across on a bridge or cross under in a BART train to get where I was going.
The Most Common Question: What Is Up with Those Crazy Colors Around the Edges of the Bay?!?
In my job as Executive Project Manager of the South Bay Salt Pond Restoration Project, I do a lot of media interviews, public appearances, presentations to elected officials, and site tours with groups of students and other interested groups. I also meet a lot of people socially.
What Are We Doing at Eden Landing? And When?
Hello – and welcome back to Salty Dave’s Wetland Weblog, where we ironically embrace a lot of alliterative archaisms!
I am psyched to have gotten our first Reader Suggestion for a blog entry topic: Brian Coyne asked about what we are planning to do at the Eden
Introduction to Salty Dave’s Wetland Weblog
We’re trying out something new here at the Project’s website: a blog! I know: blogs are very 2002…but, uh…having had yet another birthday, I realized that I’m getting old enough that 2002 doesn’t seem that long ago to me. I still have a sweatshirt from 1996 that I wear pretty often, so I’m not discarding a good piece of casualwear OR a fun way to reach the stakeholders and various audiences for the Restoration Project just because either one dates back to the Clinton administration.¹