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March 2024

Oysters on the Half-Ton (Pickup)!

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. 

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:

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.

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.

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.

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.

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