An Analysis Of Selected San Francisco Bay Wetlands Under Sea Level Rise

An Analysis Of Selected San Francisco Bay Wetlands Under Sea Level Rise

Introduction

Over the past few years, the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission has become increasingly concerned that continued sea level rise from global warming will have profound impacts in the San Francisco Bay region, largely because over 200 square miles of low-lying filled land borders the Bay. Because BCDC was created largely to regulate Bay fill projects with the goal of preventing the Bay from becoming even smaller from unnecessary landfill projects, BCDC was not legally responsible for dealing with this dramatic change in climatic conditions that is making the Bay larger. Nor did BCDC have any explicit legal authority to address this problem. In light of this situation, in 2006 the Commission requested that the staff provide a broad outline of a comprehensive strategy for addressing climate change in the Bay region and identify any changes that would be needed in state law so that BCDC can play a productive role in implementing such a strategy. [1]

San Francisco Bay is the largest estuary on the west coast of the North and South American continents. When the California Gold Rush began in 1849, the open waters and bordering wetlands of the Bay covered 787 square miles, and this magnificent natural harbor teemed with wildlife. But the Bay was shallow; two-thirds of it less than 12 feet deep. The un-fortunate result was that as the new State of California began to grow, the Bay began to shrink. Shallow tidal areas were diked off from the open Bay to create salt ponds, farmland and duck hunting clubs. Municipalities used the Bay for garbage dumps. Siltation from hydraulic gold mining in the Sierra foothills washed into the Bay and filled wetlands. And numerous land rec-lamation operations were undertaken to create dry real estate where Bay waters once flowed.

By the middle of the 20th century, the Bay's open waters had been reduced to 548 square miles and nearly a third of the Bay--239 square miles--was gone. In 1959, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers published a report which concluded that it was economically feasible to reclaim another 325 square miles--60 percent of the remaining Bay--by 2020. The Bay Area public rejected the notion that the Bay should be allowed to become little more than a wide river. Working together, in 1965, Bay Area citizens convinced the California Legislature to establish a new state agency--the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission (BCDC)--and to empower the agency to regulate new development in the Bay and along its shoreline so that any future fill placed in the Bay would be largely limited to water-oriented uses that could not be accommodated on existing land.

In March 2006, the California Environmental Protection Agency published the Climate Action Team Report to the Governor and the Legislature, which evaluated three scenarios for reducing the amounts of greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere over the next ...