Salt Pond Restoration: What Role Should History Take?

Commercial salt production in the San Francisco Bay began in 1854, mostly as small family operations, but by the 1930s had been consolidated under one company, Leslie Salt Co., later purchased in 1978 by Cargill. In October 2000, Cargill proposed to sell lands and salt production rights on 61 percent of its South Bay operation area. The State of California and the Federal government are now embarked on the restoration of 15,100 acres of Cargill's salt ponds in the South San Francisco Bay, in the Baumberg, Alviso, and West Bay units.

This extensive restoration project will integrate restoration with flood management, while also providing for public access, wildlife-oriented recreation, and education opportunities. It aims to restore and enhance a mosaic of wetlands, creating a vibrant ecosystem. Restored tidal marshes will provide critical habitat for the endangered California clapper rail and the salt marsh harvest mouse. Large marsh areas with extensive channel systems will also provide habitat for fish and other aquatic life and haul out areas for harbor seals. A portion of the ponds will remain as managed ponds and be enhanced to maximize their use as feeding and resting habitat for migratory shorebirds and waterfowl traveling on the Pacific Flyway.

This colloquium will explore the environmental history of 150 years of industrial salt production in the San Francisco Bay Area, and will also raise questions about the appropriate role of historic preservation in the context of restoring the ecosystem to a more natural form and function.

Laura A. Watt, Ph.D. from UC Berkeley and currently an environmental planner with EDAW, Inc., will lead the colloquium.