By Robin Meadows
The San Pablo Bay National Wildlife Refuge, which hugs the northern arc of the San Francisco Bay, was established half a century ago to conserve water birds. Now the refuge has an additional vital role: bolstering the region against climate change. The San Francisco Bay is the most urbanized estuary nationwide with 7.5 million people, and rising seas threaten to inundate much of the tidal marsh that absorbs floodwaters and buffers the shoreline from storm surges.
The refuge is a rarity in that it lies along a stretch of shore not hemmed in by dense development. New efforts to expand the refuge are underway, which would give its marshes room to migrate inland as the tides slowly but surely lap higher. “The North Bay has the greatest potential to adapt to climate change,” says refuge manager Melisa Amato.
The matter is urgent. “We have to get this restoration underway by 2030 or sea level rise will just drown the baylands,” says Ariana Rickard, public policy and funding program manager at the Sonoma Land Trust, which is making a big push to reinstate former wetlands near the refuge. Baylands are tidal habitats such as mudflats and marshes.
“This is an unprecedented opportunity in the Bay Area because there are large parcels with no houses,” Rickard continues.
Rather, wetlands adjacent to the refuge were drained and dyked for agriculture. Farmers are increasingly willing to sell these parcels as sea level rise pushes salty water further inland and makes levee maintenance more costly. Reconnecting these fields with the Bay would give marshes room to move naturally. The tides would do much of the rest, depositing the sediment that, bit by bit, creates new wetland every time they wash in.
Extensive swaths of tidal marsh―190,000 acres―once fringed the San Francisco Bay but much of this protective wetland is now gone. The region set out to protect and restore 100,000 acres of tidal marsh nearly 25 years ago and is now within 22,000 acres of achieving this goal.
The Sonoma Land Trust aims to protect and restore some 20,000 acres of tidal marsh by 2030, the projected cutoff for giving new wetlands the best chance of outpacing rising tides. The organization has already bought, restored and transferred parcels to the San Pablo Bay National Wildlife Refuge, which is part of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) and is better suited to manage wildlands.
But the land trust’s most recent purchases of former wetlands are currently not eligible for transfer to the refuge. These parcels are outside the acquisition boundary, which designates which areas the refuge can add, leaving the question of what to do with them when their restoration is complete. The answer arose during a restoration planning meeting.
“A light bulb went off around the table and everybody said, ‘Hey, USFWS!’” Amato recalls.
In 2020, the Sonoma Land Trust, Ducks Unlimited and other restoration partners asked the refuge to expand its acquisition boundary. The formal USFWS process for doing so is now in motion and will likely take about two years.
A map of the proposed new acquisition boundary is not yet available because each parcel must first be evaluated for compatibility with the refuge’s mission of conserving native species and habitats. This rules out land with, for example, houses or contaminants. The refuge is currently 21,000 acres, and the USFWS study area for expansion includes another 24,000 acres of former wetlands just to the north.
Community acceptance is also vital so the refuge is gearing up for outreach to local residents, landowners and tribes on the proposed expansion. “We need buy-in,” Amato says, emphasizing that expanding the acquisition boundary would not automatically add any parcels to the refuge, and that the refuge would annex lands only from willing sellers. “The federal government won’t just take over any land.”
Justin Bodell, an avid duck hunter and environmental restorationist, loves the San Pablo Bay National Wildlife Refuge. “It’s my favorite place in the world,” he says.
It’s easy to see why. The refuge is spectacular on a recent mid-November morning. It’s chilly but the sun is warm, the salt air is refreshing, and on a clear day you can see all the way across the expanse of San Pablo Bay to San Francisco.
A relatively recent restoration called the Dickson Ranch Unit lies on one side of the trail. The levee that surrounded this former oat hay field was breached in 2015, allowing tides to rush in. The future marsh is still mostly open water that mirrors the light blue sky. But it’s also fringed with the greens and yellows of tidal marsh plants, and dotted with small islands. These mounds slow the incoming tides, accelerating sediment deposition to jumpstart marsh formation.
On the other side of the trail, a well-established tidal marsh restoration illustrates what the Dickson Ranch Unit―and the Sonoma Land Trust’s latest purchases of former wetlands―will become over time. The marsh is lovely, with channels curving through gray-green pickleweed edged with clumps of cordgrass.
Bodell, who’s served as a board member of the Friends of the San Pablo Bay National Wildlife Refuge for eight years, is all for the refuge protecting more of the tidal marsh he enjoys. But he wonders why there’s a separate, legislative effort to expand the refuge. Last September, Congressman John Garamendi, who represents part of the Bay Area, co-introduced the San Pablo Bay National Wildlife Refuge Expansion Act.
“It’s mysterious to me,” Bodell says.
The legislative expansion would be far smaller than that under consideration by the USFWS at less than 6,000 acres. This expansion would also include two parcels that are not in the USFWS proposal, and their inclusion came at the request of the current landowners in 2022.
However, Bodell and his fellow board members have doubts about the suitability of these two parcels for the refuge. They detailed their concerns in a letter to Garamendi’s office last year during the public comment period for the draft San Pablo Bay National Wildlife Refuge Expansion Act.
One of the parcels at issue is the Mare Island Western Early Transfer Parcel, which is on the east side of the San Pablo Bay adjacent to the refuge and is owned by the California State Lands Commission. Mare Island is the site of a former Navy shipyard, raising concerns of legacy contaminants such as mercury, lead, and military munitions and explosives.
The other parcel that worries Bodell and his fellow board members is the Bel Marin Keys Unit V, which flanks a housing development on the west side of the San Pablo Bay and is owned by the California Coastal Conservancy. This parcel comes with the extra expense of keeping that neighborhood dry. “There’s no pot of money to pay for maintenance and operations of the water management infrastructure,” Bodell says. “The refuge is grossly underfunded as it is―and it’s just going to get worse with sea level rise.”
Much of the refuge is along Highway 37, a busy, flood-prone road that links Highway 101 in Marin County with Interstate 80 in Solano County. The refuge already operates giant stormwater pumps to keep water off Highway 37 at a monthly cost of $18,000.
The refuge’s funding is so tight that project partner Ducks Unlimited makes up some of the shortfall, for example paying a handyman for part-time maintenance. This ranges from the routine, such as fixing water control structures, to the unexpected, such as hauling away the refrigerator that someone dumped overnight. Another unforeseen expense is the $130,000 it will take to remove the 70-foot sailboat that broke free during an extreme high tide, floated into refuge through a levee breach, and is wedged against a mound in the Dickson Ranch Unit.
Another concern is whether the legislative expansion might sidestep the USFWS process. “I fear these parcels would just be added,” Bodell says, citing the Congressional Record transcript of Congressman’s Garamendi’s wording when he introduced the bill to Congress in September. “He was not talking about expanding the acquisition boundary, he was talking about expanding the refuge.”
While the Friends of the San Pablo Bay National Wildlife Refuge got no response to their letter, sources familiar with San Pablo Bay National Wildlife Refuge Expansion Act recently addressed their concerns in an email to Maven’s Notebook. The U.S Navy is responsible for remediating any legacy contaminants or hazardous substances remaining on the Mare Island Western Early Transfer Parcel. In addition, the legislative expansion has a provision for the USFWS to co-manage the Bel Marin Keys Unit V with the California Coastal Conservancy, which as the parcel’s owner currently operates its water control infrastructure.
Finally, the legislative expansion would authorize expanding the acquisition boundary to include these two parcels but would not automatically add them to the refuge. The USFWS would still have the final say on any expansion.
Uncertainties over the particulars of the refuge’s future notwithstanding, Amato is committed to expanding the tidal marsh under the refuge’s protection. “We have to do it,” she says. “We have to save our wetlands.”
