Good story about its shaping and formation, with major help from a local nonprofit and Vic Fazio.
An excerpt.
Fazio brought back the wetlands
By Cory Golden/Enterprise staff writer
Published Oct 10, 2006 - 00:19:34 CDT.
Then: It began as a dream about clouds of ducks and geese.It grew in conversations around dinner tables, local conservationists imagining an inland sea thriving once again with wildlife.
They enlisted the support of then Yolo County Supervisor Betsy Marchand and, later, the backing of both the Board of Supervisors and Davis City Council.
The California Department of Fish and Game agreed to buy land, if an adequate water supply existed. The Central Valley Habitat Joint Venture paid for a water-supply study.
Once the local partnerships began fitting together, the wetlands earned their biggest champion.
Now: Vic Fazio, a senior adviser to a Washington, D.C.-area law firm, still visits Northern California regularly.
But even if he stopped, the 63-year-old former congressman would hear about the wildlife area that carries his name.
“Friends from back East who are traveling between Tahoe and the Bay Area, they call me up on their cell phones at all times of the day and night,” Fazio said Friday.
“They say, ‘Hey, Vic, I just drove over your marsh.’ ”
Fazio will be back in Davis Friday for the Yolo Basin Foundation’s annual Bucks for Ducks event.
The fund-raiser supports the ever-growing conservation and education work done by the nonprofit that grew out of those kitchen-table talks.
