fbpx

The Watershed Project

Point Pinole Regional Shoreline

Centuries of Conservation | My Story of Building 100 Behemoth Reef Balls

By Martin Murray

There is only one thing I have done in my life that will last hundreds of years. It will still be there for my great-great-great-grandchildren to witness and appreciate in the future, and it will do wonders for the San Francisco Bay. The project that I am so very proud to have been a part of is the building of artificial oyster reefs that were recently placed in the Bay at Point Pinole in Richmond.martin

I joined The Watershed Project team as an intern in May of 2013, and I was amazed at three things when I started. Firstly, how quickly I was able to become immersed in the project and get my hands dirty learning how to make these reef balls. Secondly, that this native oyster reef was nearly three years in the making because of the incredible amount coordination required between different groups. Paperwork, permissions, funding sources, and very specific material restrictions on what we could and could not use in the reef construction made The Watershed Project’s vision for a better bay a challenging feat to accomplish. Lastly, I was amazed by the commitment of my program manager, Chris Lim, not only to the project, but to making it a community effort. He was constantly talking to and encouraging volunteers to come out and help us make these reefs. His dedication to ensuring this project was to be a community educational tool has never faltered from day one. This project was literally built for the public good by a motivated group of community volunteers, and this is largely due to Christopher Lim. martin2

When I started, there were 30 reef balls built. Over the summer months, we continued to build over 70 more with the help of many hands from volunteers. When I explain the reef-making process of shoveling sand and shell by hand into truck beds, loading the proper amounts of each ingredient into the mixer, scooping wet cement by hand into buckets and dumping them into one mold at a time, and then coming back two days later to move the 250 lb behemoths and start over again, it sounds tedious and monotonous. reef3It was not. It was, hands down, some of the most rewarding work I have ever done in my life. And in November, I was lucky enough to watch the reef balls get dropped into the San Francisco Bay at Point Pinole, knowing full well that I was part of something much bigger than myself. I am confident that the reefs will do well at recruiting native Olympia oysters, and successfully inspiring countless visitors over centuries who get the chance to witness what spectacular things can come from a just a humble shellfish.

Share

What’s in Your Watershed? | Dr. King Day of Service Events!

By Derek Hitchcock

“Life’s most persistent and urgent question is: What are you doing for others?” — Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was a visionary whose passion and aspiration for equality altered the history of our nation and the world. During his life, he shared his hope of creating an America where freedom and justice for all was a reality and not an empty adage. Please help us honor Dr. King’s legacy by joining The Watershed Project on January 20th for a national day of service. We hope that you will answer Dr. King’s question by actively engaging in public service along the Richmond Greenway or at Point Pinole Regional Shoreline.

bioswalebeforeOver the past 7 years, organizations active on the Richmond Greenway have hosted a workday that invites the surrounding community to participate in restoration and art projects. Hundreds of volunteers have come together to volunteer their time and their hands— rain or shine— to convert the Greenway into a collective open space for everyone’s enjoyment. The Watershed Project will be caring for its 400 foot bioswale between 6th Street and 8th Street in Richmond. The bioswale has transformed what was once a stagnant ditch into a verdant creek-like feature that takes in rainwater flowing off the streets and filters out the pollutants that collect in this stormwater, before sending the water on its way to the Bay.

bioswaleafterThis year, we need volunteers for our final phase of making the bioswale look and act like a natural creek. We’ll be planting trees that will mimic a native riparian gallery forest once all the trees are mature. The array of native tree species will follow the natural composition of species that occur in a riparian corridor. At the downstream, wetter end of the bioswale at 6th Street, species that naturally occur near creek edges, such as willow and alder, will be planted. The species composition will then transition upstream on the bioswale toward 8th Street to maple, bay, ash, and redwood, and the driest edges of the riparian corridor will be planted with oaks. Our riparian forest will create valuable habitat, not only for critters, but also for humans, to enjoy some shade on a hot summer day!

Volunteers will also get a chance to tend the native habitat gardens that are planted to attract valuable pollinating insects and birds in the spring.

If a view of the beautiful San Francisco Bay shoreline speaks to you, we will be hosting an event at Point Pinole as well. mlkpointHere is your chance to enjoy and lend a hand to nurture this East Bay Regional Park that has 5.5 miles of shoreline and is home to 100 species of bird and lots of other critters. You can gaze at Mt. Tamalpais while removing invasive vegetation or meander along the meadows and marsh admiring the wintering birds while removing marine debris and invasive plants. Whatever you do, we hope that you will help make Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s dream a reality this coming Monday and make it a day on, not a day off!

Share

We Have Deployment! | 100 Reef Balls Create a Native Oyster Reef

By Chris Lim

oysterreef1Hooray, we finally did it! This past Friday, we adorned the San Francisco Bay with our native oyster reef along the North Richmond shoreline in Point Pinole Regional Park. Friday’s installation was a culmination of many days and years of demanding work, work highlighting people’s dedication to making the Bay a healthier place. Work either touched by an agency ally, community volunteer, or local supporter.

A range of people attended this eventful day, each with a common connection: the Olympia oyster. As the only oyster native to the west coast of North America, we all appreciate the role oysters play in a healthy ecosystem. Oysters provide habitat for small organisms such as amphipods, worms, and crabs, that are food for larger animals like salmon and birds.

Under a bright sun and pleasant breeze, community members enjoyed oysters on the half shell, while observing the crew of Dixon Marine Services, a local oceanographic company, lower 100 reef balls into the water. Throughout the day, people had a variety of questions about our 250 pound reef balls, but the one on the tip of everyone’s tongue was, “Can we eat the oysters growing on them?” We need people to understand that our project is rooted in science and the oysters are NOT to be eaten. Our Bay and its infinite connections to the people of the Bay, is inevitably affected by the pollution entering our Estuary. Oysters are filter feeders, so in order to eat, adult oysters filter almost 10 gallons of water per day. Oysters can store some of these pollutants in their bodies, and excrete them as well. But one day we envision a swimmable and edible Bay.oysterreef2

Though our project is rooted in science our native oyster reef is really about our community. This reef will benefit the health of San Francisco Bay for years to come because a small group of proactive people decided to make positive environmental choices together. Whether one helped push through a permit, got dirty making reef balls, monitored oysters, or donated services, their imprint is a lasting part of the oyster reef. The reef is another opportunity to connect people with their watershed. The reef becomes an outdoor classroom in our high school curriculum, Wild! Oysters. Students come face-to-face with actual live oysters in the field and monitor them just as marine scientists would. We will also engage community volunteers to monitor the reef for oyster recruitment and the percent cover of other organisms. volunteers

We all worked together to do something good for our Bay, and provide Mother Nature with the kick-start she needs. So now the reef balls will allow nature to take its course, letting hundreds of thousands newly attached oysters, or spat, to filter pollutants from the Bay. Our reef is a great example of what an organized community is able to accomplish.

If you are interested in becoming involved with the monitoring of native oysters, please check our upcoming events and contact Chris Lim.

Photo Credits: Andrew Whitmore, Greening Urban Watersheds Intern

Share

Thanks Dixon Marine Services! | A Small Business Helps Us Make a Big Splash

By Diana Dunn

Ten months ago, Chris Lim, The Watershed Project’s Living Shoreline Program Manager, and I caught ourselves daydreaming as a cement mixer droned on. We had just lifted our first three reef balls off of their platforms, and after a few back breaking attempts, we established that moving them was going to be one of the largest hurdles we would have to overcome in this whole process. From that moment on, we started developing harebrained schemes of contraptions and floats that would enable us to deploy the reef balls into the San Francisco Bay. But as visions of homemade hoists danced in our heads we were saved by the many heroes of Dixon Marine Services, Inc.

invernessDixon Marine is nestled in the small town of Inverness and provides a wide range of services from remediation and restoration projects on the water to water quality and sediment sampling. Needless to say, the founders of Dixon Marine, Rebecca Dixon and Mark Sutton, have a team and set of equipment with a wide range of specialties. The Watershed Project was so grateful when Mark offered to send a crew out, free of charge, to our office at the Richmond Field Station and not only load up the reef balls, but float them out and place them into the bay.

The “crew” that had to do all the heavy lifting was actually a team of two. One was Ethan Livingston, whom I met as he hopped out the cab of one of Dixon Marine’s large flatbed trucks. Before saying anything, Ethan quickly surveyed our makeshift oyster reef manufacturing plant.

“So how many of these are there?” Ethan asked as scratched his 5 o’clock shadow.

I explained that with the tremendous help of many volunteers, we were able to build over 100 reef balls. However, because our initial building days were filled with mishaps, some of the reef balls hadn’t been constructed as well.

Now intrigued by what I had said, Ethan removed his sunglasses and placed them on his weather worn baseball cap, asking “Wow, so you actually had volunteers come out and help you build them?” ethan

I expressed to Ethan that one of the main components of our native oyster restoration project is engaging local volunteers, both adults and students. I told him that we held over 30 community workdays, and had a total of 40 volunteers donated a total of 225 hours to our program.

“Are you sad to the reef balls go?” Ethan asked before starting his monumental task of moving 100 reef balls.

Taking a few seconds to think about it, I told him that our project, and others such as the Living Shorelines: Nearshore Linkages Project in San Rafael and Hayward are guided by the San Francisco Subtidal Habitat Goals Report. These projects are a small step toward the total goal of restoring 8,000 acres of oyster habitat. I let him know that it will be tough to see them go, but I’m excited to see what changes they will create in our bay and in the community.

Dixon Marine Services, Inc. was in large part the reason this project was achievable. Without their donated time and equipment, Chris Lim and I would still be daydreaming of a better San Francisco Bay full of oyster reef balls. Many thanks to everyone at Dixon Marine!

Photo Credit of Ethan Livingston: Dan Honda, Bay Area News Group

Share

Dear Friends, Please Help Us | Build the First Community-Based Native Oyster Garden in San Francisco Bay

We’ve received partial funding to install a native oyster garden at Point Pinole Regional Shoreline in Richmond. This will be the first native oyster garden in San Francisco Bay built by the community, for the community! To pay for materials, public outreach, and educational activities, we need your help to raise an additional $15,000.

Why Native Oysters?
The diminutive mollusks play an important role in the Bay’s ecology for two reasons. First, oysters are habitat engineers. Generations of oysters living and dying on top of each other create substantial reefs of shell. These reefs stabilize the bay floor and host a rich, diverse biota that includes migrating salmonids, spawning herring, and tiny goby fish that lay their eggs inside oyster shells. Oysters are also an important food source for larger fish and birds.

Second, oysters are highly effective filter feeders, meaning they clarify the water. In the process of feeding, each oyster is a prodigious water treatment plant purifying as much as 30 quarts of water a day through their gills.

Clarified water allows sunlight to penetrate deeper, improving conditions for another important species: eelgrass. Eelgrass physically blocks or captures sediment with its sticky blades. This process keeps the oyster shells free of sediment, thus providing more places for young oysters to attach. When both oysters and eelgrass are present, the subtidal ecosystem is able to flourish.

A healthy subtidal ecosystem built around species-rich oyster reefs and eelgrass, is absolutely essential for recovery of the salmon and herring fisheries. These oyster beds are the cornerstone of a living shoreline highway that guides and nurtures migrating fish like salmon and herring. Additionally, the sticky blades of eelgrass capture the spawn of herring and become food for juvenile salmonids (smolts) that pass through on their way to the ocean while the herring are spawning. The wavy blades also provide shelter from predators for the smolts.

Because they contribute so much to the health of many other species, oysters and eelgrass are known as keystone species. By making a generous contribution to the Watershed Project’s Living Shoreline Program, you can be a keystone species too!

Your gift also helps to bring the living world under the Bay’s surface to local youth. The Point Pinole Regional Shoreline, part of East Bay Regional Park District, is the largest shoreline park in the entire Bay Area. The 2,315-acre park features a myriad of habitats and over 100 species of birds can be found on sandy shores, marshland, eucalyptus groves, meadows, and a fresh water pond. And yet it is vastly underutilized. Our educators are changing that. They have engaged hundreds of youth who have never considered what’s living underwater. Some had never seen the Bay! We need to nurture these budding scientists to ensure a healthy Bay for future generations.

Thank you for your support. You may make a contribution by clicking here.

Or by sending a check to:
The Watershed Project Oyster Reef Project
1327 South 46th Street
155 Richmond Field Station
Richmond, CA 94804

Share