Discharge To San Pablo Bay
This large marsh area has been reduced considerably from its historic dimensions due to construction of multiple levee systems and encroachment by agriculture and other forms of development. This Napa-Sonoma Marsh has been formed largely by sedimentary deposits over the last two million years. The basement depositional layer is the Alameda group. Higher are Old bay mud and Young bay mud, between which there are intermediate deposits of the Alameda formation, which consists of alluvial and swamp origins. The entire marsh area is considered subject to liquefaction in the case of a major seismic event. The marsh is subject to diurnal tidal variations of approximately 5.5 feet (1.7 m).
Historically the marsh supported an extremely diverse wetlands ecosystem, with a variety of primary productivity plants including pickleweed, eelgrass and giant bulrush (Scirpus californiens). There has also been historically significant fish, mammal, amphibian and avafauna. The marsh is a significant element within the Pacific Flyway providing resting and feeding areas for migratory birds. As of 2006 this ecosystem has been significantly compromised by fill, levee formation, dredging and other development; estimates generally state that 75 percent of the original biological productivity of the marsh has been destroyed. However, it remains a significant habitat and is subject to meaningful wetland restoration activity, that is being actively evaluated as of the 2000-2006 timeframe.
Read more about this topic: Sonoma Creek
Famous quotes containing the words discharge, san and/or bay:
““Weren’t you relieved to find he wasn’t dead?”
“No! and yet I don’t know it’s hard to say.
I went about to kill him fair enough.”
“You took an awkward way. Did he discharge you?”
“Discharge me? No! He knew I did just right.””
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“the San Marco Library,
Whence turbulent Italy should draw
Delight in Art whose end is peace,
In logic and in natural law
By sucking at the dugs of Greece.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“A great work by an Englishman is like a great battle won by England. It is an unfading bay tree.”
—Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–1889)