Dear HCN,
Susan Zakin’s article,
“Delta Blues” (HCN, 9/30/02: Delta blues), is perhaps the best and
clearest explanation of the complex issues involved in California’s
attempt to be all things to all people when it comes to demands for
water. She mentions that the San Joaquin-Sacramento River Delta
region is “virtually invisible to most people who live here.”
That’s certainly true, and many out-of-state visitors traveling
through the Delta area leave with the image of the region being a
land of asphalt-covered, Formica-Modern, sprawling “slurbs” jammed
with millions of people. Even few Californians are aware that the
San Francisco Bay-Sacramento-San Joaquin River delta region is the
largest estuary on the West Coast of North and South
America.
I would like to supplement Zakin’s fine
article with a few comments from a scientist’s point of view. True,
the Delta can be very cold and damp, just as Zakin relates, but it
is an environmental treasure of sloughs, creeks and islands, rich
in ecological diversity. In addition to it being on the Pacific
Flyway, which serves millions of migrating waterfowl, as well as
millions of local birds, the Delta supports more than 130 species
of fish, including several distinct chinook salmon runs. The San
Francisco Bay Delta region’s varied topography, weather and soil
account for a wide variety of imperiled endemic species, such as
the salt marsh harvest mouse and clapper rail. Within as short a
distance as 20 miles, air temperatures may vary by 50 degrees, and
include a mix of vernal pools, sloughs, riparian zones, coastal
dunes, sand hills and oak woodlands.
California
leads the U.S. in biological diversity – 6,717 native animal and
plant species, of which almost 1,300 are endemic – more than any
other state. The Delta is a hot spot of this diversity, so
important that The Nature Conservancy and its associated groups and
partners are working hard to secure large tracts of this
ecologically distinctive region in order to preserve the Delta’s
biodiverse richness.
D.D.
Trent
Claremont, California
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Bay is an environmental treasure.
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
