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Chapter 1: Summary

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Contents

Process for Developing Goals

Habitat Goals

Implementing the Goals Recommendations

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This report presents the recommendations of the San Francisco Bay Area Wetlands Ecosystem Goals Project. It includes a vision of the habitats that are needed to sustain healthy populations of fish and wildlife in the baylands of San Francisco Bay, and identifies specific sites where wetlands and associated habitats should be protected, restored, or enhanced. It also provides recommendations on habitat design and management, on monitoring and research, and identifies many technical and policy issues that need to be addressed as part of implementing the goals.

Use of the habitat goals is meant to be voluntary the goals do not require any landowner to modify existing land use or management practices. They should be used as the basis for more detailed, future planning and project design.

The geographic scope of the Goals Project includes the main subregions of the San Francisco Bay estuary downstream of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta Suisun Bay, San Pablo Bay, and San Francisco Bay. Within this area, Project participants have focused their attention on the baylands the lands within the historical and modern boundaries of the tides and the baylands ecosystem. This was done because the baylands support many species of special concern and represent the best opportunities to restore or enhance large areas of wetlands in the near future.

The need to establish habitat goals emerged from the San Francisco Estuary Project in 1993, and from subsequent discussions among representatives of fish and wildlife agencies seeking to improve coordination and to develop consistent recommendations regarding the baylands habitats. The Project got underway in 1995 with more than one hundred participants representing federal, state, and local agencies, academia, and the private sector. Participants are organized in several groups, each of which has a unique role in developing the goals; the Resource Managers Group, comprised of representatives from state and federal resource agencies, oversees the Project.

A variety of entities including local governments and districts, state and federal agencies, and others, have provided generous financial and staff resources to the Project. Funding has been primarily for the development of technical tools, data analysis, Project reports, and outreach materials. By the time the goals are completed this fall, about $700,000 will have been spent under individual grants and contracts.

Process for Developing Goals

The process for developing habitat goals involved several steps. These included selecting key species and key habitats, assembling and evaluating information, preparing recommendations, and integrating recommendations into goals. The Resource Managers Group decided to develop goals based on species needs because there was relatively abundant information available on baylands species and habitats, and because there was general agreement that goals developed to protect many kinds of plants and animals would concurrently assure other important wetlands services such as nutrient cycling, flood control, and water quality improvement.

In selecting key species of the Baylands ecosystem, technical focus teams screened nearly 400 species of fish and wildlife, and evaluated plant communities from the bayshore to the adjacent uplands. The focus teams ultimately selected 120 species of invertebrates, fish, amphibians, reptiles, mammals, and birds to represent the complexity of the baylands ecosystem.

In developing its list of key habitats, the Project participants reviewed habitat lists created for previous wetlands planning efforts. Eventually, they designated some two dozen habitats that occur in the Bay, the baylands, and in adjacent areas as key habitats of the baylands ecosystem. Most of the habitat designations have been commonly used in the region for years; however, some are unique to the Project.

After selecting an appropriate array of species and habitats, Project participants assembled qualitative and quantitative data on them, prepared initial habitat recommendations, and then prepared habitat goals.

Habitat Goals

The goals presented in this report are based on the fundamental tenet that there should be no additional loss of wetlands in the baylands ecosystem. The goals are presented in two forms: as a general vision and as site-specific recommendations.

The vision presents an array of habitats that should exist in the Bay well before the end of the next century. It attempts to address the competing habitat needs of the estuary's many species, especially those species that are dependent on tidal marsh and those that use salt ponds or diked seasonal wetlands, and it presents these goals graphically and in text. It is important to note that the vision is a view of the distant future, and it is not a blueprint or a precise prescription that must be followed exactly to attain the goals.

The vision embodies several ecological design considerations. Key among these are that restoration should:

• Strive for large (2,000+ acres), connected patches of tidal marsh habitat centered on existing populations of species of special concern (e.g., salt marsh harvest mouse and California clapper rail).

• Emphasize placing tidal marshes along the Bay edge and at the mouths of streams to maximize benefits for fishes.

• Include natural features such as large tidal channels, marsh ponds, transitional pannes, and beaches to maximize habitats for many species of fishes, shorebirds, and waterfowl.

• Establish managed saline ponds and managed seasonal ponds close to mudflats to provide high-tide habitat for shorebirds.

• Emphasize natural transitions between baylands habitats and adjacent uplands to provide habitat for many rare plant species.

• Provide for continuous corridors of riparian vegetation along streams tributary to the Bay.

• Provide upland buffers to protect all wetland habitats from disturbance.

The report describes the vision in three slightly different views for each of the Project subregions except Central Bay, where the options for large-scale restoration are relatively limited. These views show the kind of flexibility that will be necessary in order to accommodate implementation constraints such as land availability or construction or maintenance costs. Based on the current level of understanding, the general picture presented by the vision is expected to achieve the goal of sustaining healthy and diverse populations of fish and wildlife and strives to strike a balance between the needs of the various species.

The report provides specific recommendations for 124 sites. Although they describe actions to improve a wide variety of habitats, these recommendations should be considered as a starting place rather than as a comprehensive list of all sites that could be restored or enhanced; it may be entirely appropriate to undertake projects at other sites as well.

Effecting the changes called for by the goals would substantially alter the landscape in much of the estuary. In the Suisun subregion, tidal marsh would be restored in a continuous band around the Suisun Marsh and along the Contra Costa shoreline. In the North Bay, many of the inactive salt ponds near the Napa River would be restored to tidal marsh and the remainder managed as shallow saline ponds for waterfowl and shorebirds; also, farmed and grazed areas would be managed to maximize functions for waterbirds, and management could include activities such as farming, disking, or grazing. In the South Bay, all of the existing salt ponds would either be restored to tidal marsh or managed as shallow saline ponds. Implementing these recommendations would result in the following changes in some of the key baylands habitats:

Habitat Type	Historical (ca. 1800)	Modern (ca. 1997)	Future (ca. 2100)	Comments
Tidal Marsh	187,000	34,000	95,000 - 103,000	Tidal marsh would be restored in areas which are currently managed marsh, farmed or grazed baylands, and salt ponds
Managed Marsh	-0-	54,000	39,000 - 46,000	Management of marshes would be enhanced to improve waterfowl habitat
Farmed /Grazed Bayland	-0-	32,000	-0-	Farmed and grazed baylands would be restored to tidal marsh and managed seasonal pond habitat (where farming and grazing practices could still occur)
Salt Pond	1,600	25,000	500 - 1,000	Salt pond would be restored to tidal marsh and managed saline ponds
Managed Saline Pond	-0-	9,000	15,000 - 20,000	Saline ponds would be established in areas of existing salt ponds and managed to provide habitat primarily for waterbirds
Managed Seasonal Pond	-0-	-0-	9,000 - 13,000	Seasonal ponds would be managed to maximize habitat for waterbirds management could include practices such as farming, burning, grazing, etc.

Implementing the Goals Recommendations

Implementing the habitat recommendations in this report will require taking into account several technical considerations. These include large-scale physical factors such a sea level rise and sediment supply and deposition, as well as more site-specific design and management considerations that must be incorporated in restoration plans and long-term management.

Large-scale restoration also will require improving our understanding of the physical and biological aspects of the baylands. This will be especially important if we are to make broad and lasting habitat changes. This should be done through a coordinated program of monitoring and research that addresses gaps in understanding of baylands habitats and ecological functions, builds on existing science and monitoring experience, assesses the performance of restoration projects in the context of the goals, makes useful scientific information about the baylands available to agencies and the public, and develops new scientific tools for monitoring.

Restoring the baylands will require addressing a variety of complicated technical and policy implementation issues. These include:

• Phasing projects so that the habitat functions of diked lands especially farmed areas, salt ponds, and managed marsh are provided for when tidal marsh is restored.

• Assessing potential contaminants effects at restoration sites.

• Determining how and when to use dredged material for tidal marsh restoration.

• Evaluating the advantages and disadvantages of using wastewater for habitat enhancement.

• Determining acceptable ways to dispose of salt pond and bittern discharges.

• Incorporating buffers into restoration designs to protect habitats from disturbance.

• Providing reasonable public access while protecting wetlands.

• Controlling exotic plants and animals so that restored and existing wetlands will be able to provide maximum habitat functions.

• Incorporating features in marsh designs to minimize problems associated with mosquitos.

• Ensuring an adequate supply of freshwater flows to the estuary.

• Finding ways and places to restore wetlands outside of the baylands.

• Providing landowner incentives to encourage wetlands restoration and enhancement.

• Ensuring that lands considered for acquisition are fairly appraised.

• Improving the procedures of the regulatory agencies to facilitate rather than hinder wetlands restoration.

Once the goals are completed, they will be adopted or referred to by several entities including the San Francisco Bay Joint Venture, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the San Francisco Bay Area Conservancy Program. As the goals are disseminated, they likely will be used by others interested in protecting and improving wetlands.

Given the scope of the goals, and the fact that they will guide numerous restoration efforts in the coming years, it is imperative that we develop an effective way to implement them. It will be critically important to ensure adequate coordination among project sponsors and the regulatory and resource agencies; without this, there may be unnecessary project failures and inflated restoration costs. Also, it will be important to develop a process for updating the goals periodically as wetlands projects are undertaken and as we learn more about the baylands ecosystem. In keeping with the Estuary Project's Comprehensive Conservation and Management Plan, it would be appropriate to address these issues through the development of a regional wetlands plan.