The Palo Alto Baylands Nature Preserve is an example of successful salt marsh restoration efforts. The extremely productive landscape provides habitats and breeding grounds for many species while also protecting the city of Palo Alto from climate change.
In the still afternoon air, the sun setting in the background, the Palo Alto Baylands stir with life. A black-tailed jackrabbit hides in the brush. Alongside the marsh water, an American avocet forages for bugs. The waters swirl gently as various species of mallards and ducks swim lazily in the setting sunlight. Under the dock, a snowy egret waits in the shadows. With a large splash, an American white pelican takes off from the water, flying away with a full bill.
The marshy waters teem with smaller life as well. Worms and other bottom-dwellers eat plant material that bacteria, algae and fungi have decomposed, and what they do not eat helps fertilize the marsh for new growth in spring.
The Palo Alto Baylands Nature Preserve is a restoration success story. Today, the 1,940 acre preserve, a section of the San Francisco Bay estuary, is one of the best places on the West Coast for birdwatching and is a popular destination for school field trips.
In addition to providing shelter and food to over 50 species of birds who migrate to and breed in the baylands, the marshes of the preserve provide vital natural services to various other species as well as human populations and nearby communities.
Importance of Marshes
An extremely productive ecosystem, marshes absorb a significant amount of carbon, produce a lot of oxygen, and act as a buffer against sea level rise and large waves.
Wetlands, like the Palo Alto Baylands along the San Francisco Bay, protect coasts by absorbing “energy from storms and waves while also providing habitat” for a variety of species that support other fish and wildlife, including wetland birds and economically significant fisheries species,” according to a 2023 research article published by the Public Library of Science.
As the largest estuary in California, the San Francisco Bay provides vital breeding grounds for various types of fish – from shellfish to large, commercially important fish.
According to the National Ocean Service, worldwide, salt marshes “provide essential food, refuge, or nursery habitat for more than 75 percent of fisheries species, including shrimp, blue crab, and many finfish.
Marsh plants and water plants contribute greatly to the global carbon sequestration. As “carbon sinks,” salt marshes absorb carbon from the atmosphere and store it for hundreds to thousands of years. Coastal wetlands absorb and store more carbon than tropical forests.
Marshes also have a proven effect on lowering property taxes for neighboring communities because of the protection they provide against the ocean, said Palo Alto Naturalist Corinne DeBra. The National Ocean Service explains that they also “reduce flooding by slowing and absorbing rainwater and protect water quality by filtering runoff, and by metabolizing excess nutrients.”
Another benefit the Palo Alto Baylands and other marshes provide is pollution control.
“You can think of marshes as this kind of purifying sponge for water right before it reaches the bay,” said Xavier Gomes, an M.S. student studying Earth Systems at Stanford University. “Water can sit a long time through marshes, that also means that water gets filtered out. It spends a long time going through organic matter, getting recycled, and ideally, by the time that it gets released back into the bay and then the ocean, it'd be much cleaner of these pollutants.”
History of Destruction & Restoration
Today, the Palo Alto Baylands are one of the largest marshlands on the San Francisco Bay. However, the history of the baylands has been turbulent.
For thousands of years, the Ohlone, Miwok, Southern Pomo, Wappo and Patwin tribes understood the ecosystem services the San Francisco Bay estuary provides and stewarded the land in a reciprocal relationship.
In the 1700s, Spanish colonizers in California banned indigenous practices like controlled burns. In the 1840s as the California Gold Rush took off, the influx of settlers in California significantly threatened the Native people, responding to bounties and failing to learn from those who understood the importance of the wetlands.
As California grew and the Bay Area became the site of hydraulic mining, the marshes continued to suffer from erosion and mercury poisoning. Today, the marshes of the Baylands are still filtering out mercury deposited during mining.
A period of development ensued as they filled in marshes and attempted to farm the land. Failing to succeed with agriculture in such a salty location, they turned to salt pods in the mid-1800s and a thriving salt industry. Some salt mines still operate today. Development as well as invasive species, many brought to the bay on container ships, “have destroyed or impacted more than 90 percent of Bay Area wetlands,” according to the Lucy Evans Interpretive Center.
In the late 1950s, a $30 million plan to develop hundreds of acres of marsh was proposed by private entities. They proposed the creation of parking structures, a motel, apartments, boat storage and a repair yard, a restaurant and coffee shop, and more. The Palo Alto community, finally realizing some of the benefits of the baylands and opposing more development, successfully stopped the proposed development, starting with a petition Harriet Mundy circulated in 1960 and presented to the City Council. Other Palo Alto citizens fought to stop dredging and developers in the area.
The Baylands Nature Preserve was born in 1965, gaining the name the John Fletcher Byxbee Recreation Area (the official name of the Palo Alto Baylands Nature Preserve) in 1968. Stanford alumni were instrumental in stopping the development plans and creating the preserve. John Byxbee, Stanford Class of 1902, was a city engineer for Palo Alto who helped design the park. The Lucy Evans Baylands Nature Interpretive Center recognizes Lucy Evans’, Stanford Class of 1929, efforts to preserve the Palo Alto Baylands, which also earned her the nickname “Watchdog of the Baylands.”
While the Palo Alto Baylands now protect the important coastal ecosystems, indigenous groups continue to lack access to their ancestral lands. Hundreds of Ohlone burial, village, and ceremonial sites are along the shore of the SF Bay, yet none of the Ohlone tribes have federal recognition, making it difficult for them to protect sacred sites.
Growing Recognition of Marshes
This past December, the South Bay Salt Ponds Restoration Project took another step to restoring the San Francisco Bay wetlands: breaching a Ravenswood levee to allow 300 acres of land to join the bay’s wetland area.
Another local restoration project is happening at Lookout Slough in Solano County, poised to “become the largest tidal wetland restoration project in the history of California,” according to Bay Nature magazine. The project plans to allow the slough access to tidal waters from the bay with the construction of new tidal channels and a new levee and the removal of the existing levee.
In June 2019, President Joe Biden visited the Palo Alto Baylands to announce funding of $600 million toward climate adaptation projects. Biden called the preserve “an amazing success story – of how you can work together to make our communities more climate resilient.” He acknowledged how the wetlands “act as a critical buffer between the rising tides and the communities at risk, protecting homes, property and infrastructure against flooding.”
Biden’s recognition of the importance of restoring and protecting wetland ecosystems is indicative of a larger scientific and community emphasis on wetlands as a climate solution.
Large organizations, from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to the nonprofit Ducks Unlimited, have been discussing how to protect and expand salt marshes across the country. As Palo Alto Naturalist Corinne DeBra put it, the country is having a “whoopsie moment,” realizing that it took out too many marshes and needs to put them back in.
At the 28th Annual UN Conference of the Parties (COP28) this past December 2023, world leaders announced that over 30 countries have signed an initiative to restore freshwater ecosystems, including wetlands. This Freshwater Challenge seeks to restore over 1.3 million square miles of wetlands by 2030.
As the world begins to emphasize and commit to wetland restoration, residents in the San Francisco Bay can continue to enjoy the thousands of acres of marshes along the shore. Restoration projects at the Baylands can continue to improve the inclusion of the Ohlone people in decisions and management.
At the Palo Alto Baylands Nature Preserve, 15 miles of multi-use trails are accessible daily, giving visitors a close-up view of the abundant wildlife that relies on the marsh. Just off the trails, a double-crested cormorant explores the shallow waters with northern shoveler ducks. Savannah sparrows chirp quietly in the brush. A green heron wraps its yellow toes around a branch, watching the marsh beat with life.
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Megan King is a Master’s student in the Earth Systems Environmental Communication program in the Stanford University Doerr School of Sustainability. She earned her B.S. in Earth Systems with a focus on Human Environmental Systems and a minor in Italian. Megan is passionate about using photography to tell environmental stories and was awarded the Earth Systems Senior Capstone Excellence Award for her photo essay about the Coyote Creek Watershed. Moving forward, Megan seeks to address the climate crisis by becoming an environmental lawyer.
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