Thursday, April 29, 2010

In with the new, out with the old

By Darcie Goodman Collins, Ph.D., Habitat Restoration Director


As Save The Bay's Habitat Restoration Director, I am extremely proud of my team and the 3400 + volunteers who conquered a rainy winter for a successful planting season!

Since the start of our planting season, which begins as soon as the rains come – this year it was September – community members and school groups have assisted Save The Bay in transplanting 25,532 native salt marsh plants at our numerous sites around the Bay.



At Save The Bay, we involve volunteers in every step of the restoration process. They help us collect seeds from native salt marsh plants such as gumplant, salt grass, sea lavender and California Poppies at least one year before they are ready to be planted. Volunteers help us grow all of our plants in our two native plant nurseries, and then finish the job by actually getting the plants into the ground.

Although these plants are local and have adapted to living in the marsh ecosystem, a rainy year such as this one is a blessing for wetland restoration. Ample rain and moist soils help give the newly planted vegetation an extra boost in their new marsh home. And this year, the wet conditions have expedited our ability to meet and exceed our goal to plant 25,000 native seedlings around the Bay!

So what do we do now? With a successful planting season completed, our staff and volunteers are busy making sure our newly planted seedlings are thriving in their new environment. This includes removing invasive plants to reduce competition and in drier seasons, may even involve some hand watering.



General maintenance of our sites coupled with science-based restoration techniques developed by Save The Bay experts over the past 11 years has resulted in over 100 acres of restored and enhanced tidal marsh around the Bay.

Save The Bay’s restoration efforts focus specifically on the important, yet narrow, “transition zone” which is a strip of vegetation (usually less than 30 feet wide) between two types of habitat. In this case, the transition zones we restore border the salt marsh and the upland system. A healthy transition zone is vital for the overall well-being of the marsh because it provides refuge for wildlife during flood events, a food source for marsh species, and also acts as natural buffers to protect the surrounding lands from sea level rise.

I could talk all day about Save The Bay's Community-based Restoration program and the importance of our work in maintaining a healthy Bay eco-system. But for now, if you are interested, please visit our website for more information.

Thursday, April 15, 2010

Cargill developer "myths" debunked


By Stephen Knight, Political Director


Recent blog and Twitter posts by Cargill's Redwood City developer DMB state, "there’s been a lot of misinformation and half-truths being circulated out there."

No kidding.

Openly concerned about the attention being paid to their unprecedented plans to build a new city in the Bay, the increasingly desperate developer is clumsily attempting to erase many simple and inconvenient facts by claiming that they are "myths."

But the evidence is overwhelmingly to the contrary.

Did Cargill not tell their Arizona-based development partner these basic facts about their Bay property? You be the judge:

--> Astonishingly, Cargill’s developer claims it is a "myth" that the site "was diked off from tidal action to create salt evaporation ponds." This property is former tidal marsh, diked off from the Bay to make salt. Is there another way to make a salt pond? Just look at this 1943 aerial photograph.




--> DMB says it is a "myth" that site is located within a FEMA flood plain. Apparently they have not seen Redwood City's General Plan. (Redwood City General Plan Map, page BE-54).

--> Cargill's developer refuses to admit that the Redwood City salt ponds are the largest unprotected stretch of restorable bay shoreline because, they say, the site "is privately owned by Cargill." Yet the fact that these salt ponds remain in private ownership defines why they need protection from development.

--> DMB asserts that the current zoning for the site "anticipates future development proposals." In fact, Redwood City's General Plan states of the Cargill salt ponds: "Due to the sensitive nature of these open space areas, it should be assumed that they will remain as open space forever." These salt ponds have never been zoned for housing.

--> Cargill's developer also calls a "myth" the fact that state and federal laws prohibit filling wetlands when alternatives are available. But nobody contests that fact. The US EPA recently called these salt ponds "a critically important aquatic resource that warrant special attention" (EPA letter, Jan. 5, 2010). And Cargill has filed documents with the US Army Corps calling the site "waters of the US" protected by the Clean Water Act.

--> Cargill is running ads on TV and in newspapers telling the Bay Area public that this site is "a century-old industrial facility." Does this look like an industrial facility to you?




--> The developer threatens that the only choice is to approve their massive development, otherwise Cargill will continue making salt. Nobody is telling them not to keep making salt; it is their legal right to do so. But Cargill has already made clear that salt harvesting is no longer economically viable in Redwood City (Paul Shepherd, Cargill Land Manager, letter to Redwood City residents, 2006).

Just as Redwood City voters prevented Bair Island from being developed a generation ago, Cargill’s development must be stopped so that – like Bair Island – it can be added to the Don Edwards SF Bay National Wildlife Refuge and restored to tidal wetlands to benefit people and wildlife.

For more photos and documentation behind the real facts, please visit our Flickr site.

Thursday, April 8, 2010

Sowing the Seeds of Change

By Trisha Allen, Education Coordinator and Natalie LaVan, Restoration Volunteer & Outreach Coordinator

When I say service, you say learning: service-learning, service-learning! Three cheers for the 21st Annual National Service Learning Conference.

A few short weeks ago, thousands of youth, teachers, and service-learning practitioners from around the globe gathered at the San Jose Convention Center to get inspired, share ideas, and gain tools for engaging young people in community-service projects across disciplines. The diverse representation of exhibits, workshops, thought sessions, and projects showcased during the three-day conference underscored just what a powerful teaching method service-learning can be.

And just what is service learning, you ask? To put it simply, service-learning is education in action! And the secret to successful service-learning projects lies in a few critical and common ingredients, namely: meaningful reflection, diversity, youth voice, and partnerships. Service-learning builds community and spans cultural and national boundaries and develops young people.

On the second day of the conference, Save The Bay got the chance to show participants how it’s done! About 35 individuals from all corners of the U.S. descended upon the Palo Alto Baylands for a Community-based Restoration Program. With representatives of all backgrounds – from places like Texas, New York, Tennessee and Illinois (just to name a few) – we were able to plant almost 100 native seedlings along the Bay. What's more, the group was able to learn about the key elements of a successful service-learning program and our precious Bay.

Click here for more information and resources about service-learning and the National Youth Leadership Council.

Or better yet, make Save The Bay’s Community-based Restoration Program your next service-learning project. This program engages young people in reinvigorating their communities, learning about wetland ecology and issues affecting the health of the Bay, and literally sowing those seeds of change.

Are you an educator? If so, find out how to this program aligns with curriculum standards and connects to many areas of study.

Thursday, April 1, 2010

Save The Bay Moves To Drupal

By Eric Broder, Online Outreach Specialist


Hello world, my name is Eric Broder and I'm the new Online Outreach Specialist at Save The Bay. I'm excited to be using my web skills to promote a clean and healthy San Francisco Bay. For the last four months I've been working with the communications team and a great technology consulting firm, Jackson River, to upgrade Save The Bay's website, and the new site just launched! Please check it out at saveSFbay.org.

Our website is powered by Drupal - a free and open source content management system and the hottest website framework in the world today. Drupal provides a cutting-edge foundation for a broad range of online activities, and it allows us to easily update and manage our website.



My favorite thing about Drupal is that it's open source. That means the source code on which Drupal runs is essentially in the public domain, giving us much more freedom than a closed proprietary system. This openness leads to remarkable levels of collaboration and innovation. Developers all around the world build new features that anyone can use. Google has a great blog post about openness that sums it up well - "open systems win". At the same time, Drupal provides a highly secure website and has a long history of strong and stable protection against security threats. And the Drupal community stops new threats as they arise.

Which brings me to my second favorite thing about Drupal. Barack Obama uses Drupal for the official website of the U.S. government, whitehouse.gov. (Those of you who know me, know that I'm a big Obama fan). Dries Buytaert, the original creator of Drupal, puts this into context:

First of all, I think Drupal is a perfect match for President Barack Obama's push for an open and transparent government -- Drupal provides a great mix of traditional web content management features and social features that enable open communication and participation…....Second, this is a clear sign that governments realize that Open Source does not pose additional risks compared to proprietary software, and furthermore, that by moving away from proprietary software, they are not being locked into a particular technology, and that they can benefit from the innovation that is the result of thousands of developers collaborating on Drupal.

In addition to using Drupal to manage our web content, we also started using the Salesforce relationship management system for nonprofits for our back-end database needs. Salesforce and Drupal integrate with each other, helping us run our organization more efficiently behind the scenes.

The bottom line is that this major technology upgrade allows us to put more of our time and resources towards our important work to protect and restore San Francisco Bay. Hands down our website is the best place for you to learn about our priority work, get important Bay updates, connect with our community of 25,000 Bay lovers, and support us through giving, volunteering and advocacy.

Please check out the site today and let us know what you think in the comments section below!