This sounds like a very wonderful project that one hopes, moves forward.
Sometimes the cost is just plain worth it, and that worth may not even be determined except over very long periods of time.
Restoring South Bay wetlands
RECLAIMING 10 PERCENT OF LOST ACREAGE WILL TAKE 50 YEARS, $1 BILLION
By Lisa M. Krieger
Mercury News
San Jose Mercury News
Article Launched:03/08/2007 01:37:50 AM PST
Nature will need a huge helping hand to restore the South Bay's system of salt ponds, says a long-awaited report on the future of the ambitious project.
In this unusual back-to-nature experiment, it will take more than $1 billion and 50 years of close supervision to roll back the clock to the Bay's pre-industrial conditions, concludes the draft environmental impact report on the Salt Ponds Restoration Project.
"We can't just throw it all back 100 years," said project manager Steve Ritchie of the California Coastal Conservancy, a state agency based in Oakland. "We've changed everything."
The project - the largest wetlands restoration ever conducted on the West Coast - would set aside habitat for endangered wildlife, while providing flood protection and places to play for South Bay residents.
Among new recreational sites would be a kayak launch in Hayward and 37 miles of new waterside trails in areas long off-limits to humans, including the edge of Moffett Field. The 2,400-page report offers the first formal public viewing of the project plans since the ponds were sold to the state and federal government for $100 million in 2003.
The public can respond to the report until April 23, and then a final report will be submitted and reviewed before the project can begin.
One option - doing nothing - is discouraged by the experts, who say that would not help either humans or wildlife. Also, they worry that ignored levees will breach, posing flood risks.
Fifty to 90 percent of the former Cargill ponds should be allowed to revert to wild freshwater marshland over the five-decade span of the project, the report recommends.
The new saltwater marshland would benefit harbor seals, estuarine fishes, salt marsh harvest mice, steelhead trout and "dabbling" ducks, which feed with their tails in the air.
But there will be no rush to freedom for these long-captive salt pond waters.
The restoration will be cautious and data-driven, as experts seek the best balance between artificial and wild environments for the creatures that depend on the bay.
