Lester McKee

SFEI scientists are currently working with regional partners and science advisors to assess the future sediment supply to the Bay and how that compares to the sediment needed for baylands to survive sea-level rise. Currently, baylands (tidal marshes and mudflats) are receiving enough sediment to keep pace with sea-level rise. However, sea-level rise is expected to accelerate in the coming decades, which could cause baylands to drown unless they get more sediment.

This report synthesizes historical evidence into a picture of how Coyote Creek looked and functioned before intensive modification. Prepared for the Santa Clara Valley Water District, the report helps explain contemporary landscape conditions and identify options for watershed restoration, natural flood protection, and integrated water management.

The RMP Annual Meeting is held every year in the early fall. The meeting is an opportunity for RMP stakeholders to discuss current RMP projects and highlight interesting new research. 

A new study from SFEI assessing the ability of rain gardens to remove contaminants from urban stormwater has shown that nature-based filtration may also be a solution for microplastic pollution. This solution and others will be featured in a symposium on microplastics for scientists, policy makers, and change leaders in Berkeley on October 2nd.

Urban runoff is a large and potentially controllable source of pollutants for San Francisco Bay and urban centers around the world. SFEI scientists conducted intensive measurements for suspended sediments and a range of trace organic pollutants in dry weather and storm flow runoff from a fully urban watershed. More than 91% of the loads for every pollutant measured were transported during storm events, along with 87% of the total water discharge.

Municipalities across the state and beyond are carefully planning and implementing green infrastructure in their developed landscape to restore key aspects of the natural water cycle. Green infrastructure helps to achieve stormwater attenuation and contaminant filtration by increasing the pervious surfaces in often sophisticated ways.

Results of RMP monitoring of loads from the Delta to San Francisco Bay were recently published in the journal Water Environment Research. The article follows up on a paper published in 2009 in Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry describing mercury concentrations and loads from this large river system to the Bay.

In an event convened by the San Francisco Estuary Partnership, SFEI contributed its own intellectual labor to the State of the Estuary Conference. Letitia Grenier served as the lead scientist for the State of the Estuary Report, unveiled at the gathering, and SFEI's scientists and technologists were featured prominently in the program on subjects ranging from nutrients to landscape resilience to green infrastructure to data and tools. By all measures, it was a successful conference.

The Flood Control 2.0 project team was presented with an Outstanding Environmental Project Award at the 13^th Biennial State of the Estuary Conference in Oakland, CA. The award is given by the Friends of the San Francisco Estuary to projects that benefit the San Francisco-Bay Delta Estuary and its watersheds.

Guadalupe River is contaminated with mercury mining wastes from runoff associated with the historic New Almaden Mining District in the upper watershed that produced 40 million kilograms during its working life (1850-1975) and with PCB and other urban pollutants from a long history of urbanization and industrial land uses.

SFEI has been monitoring pollutant concentrations in the Guadalupe River during winter storms since October 2002. The result is one of the world’s most extensive data sets on mercury, PCBs, and other pollutant concentrations and loads in an urban river.  In a recent manuscript, SFEI staff used the dataset to answer three major questions.

SFEI and several agency partners recently completed a multi-year, EPA funded project called Flood Control 2.0. The goal of the project was to develop information that is useful for integrating habitat restoration into flood management at the Bay edge. Project outputs are now available at floodcontrol.sfei.org.

RMP Keys to Success Highlighted in Two Manuscripts

Flood Control 2.0 is an ambitious regional effort aimed at helping restore stream and wetland habitats, water quality, and shoreline resilience around San Francisco Bay. The project leverages local resources from several forward-looking flood control agencies to redesign major flood control channels so that they provide both future flood conveyance and ecological benefit under a changing climate. This timely project will develop a set of innovative approaches for bringing environmental benefits and cost-savings to flood protection efforts at the mouths of creeks that drain to San Francisco Bay.

The transition zones between our watersheds and the Bay are often occupied by flood control channels that provide a variety of societal and environmental services but can require sediment removal to maintain flood conveyance capacity. The causes of sedimentation problems in these channels are often complex, driven in large part by a combination of high watershed sediment yield and excess tidal sediment accumulation due to decreased tidal scour.

Working in partnership primarily with the City of Richmond and the County of Contra Costa County, SFEI is developing a new GreenPlan-IT Tracker. The new tool comprises another module within the GreenPlan-IT Toolbox which, along with its three other modules, helps to plan, assess, optimize, and track municipal efforts to reduce stormwater run-off and reduce pollutant loads to the Bay.

Nonpoint source pollution has been identified nationally, in the State of California, and in the Bay Area as the leading source of degradation of natural waters. The magnitude of nonpoint source pollution is accentuated in coastal areas where human population is high and where pressures from urban development, industrial and commercial activities, and recreational use are the greatest. San Francisco Bay is listed as an impaired water body for PCBs and mercury under Section 303(d) of the federal Clean Water Act . The RWQCB has recently developed Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) reports for the Bay for mercury and PCBs.

A panel of nationally and internationally renowned scientists gathered in the Bay Area at the beginning of June 2015 to provide feedback on the EPA-funded Flood Control 2.0 project. SFEI hosted a two-day meeting with the panel that included a focused technical discussion with the project team and a broader discussion about future flood control and ecosystem management challenges at the Bay interface with invited guests from Bay Area flood control districts and natural resources agencies.

Urban runoff is a large and potentially controllable source of pollutants to San Francisco Bay and many other urban aquatic ecosystems around the world. In a RMP study conducted in water years 2007-2010, SFEI scientists made intensive measurements for suspended sediments and a range of trace organic pollutants (PCBs, dioxins, PAHs, PBDEs, pyrethroids and OC pesticides) in dry weather and storm flow runoff from a fully urban watershed in Hayward.

Results of RMP monitoring of loads from the Delta to San Francisco Bay were recently published in the journal Water Environment Research. The article follows up on a paper published in 2009 in Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry describing mercury concentrations and loads from this large river system to the Bay. This new article presents estimates for PCBs for a 6-year monitoring period and estimates for PAHs, PBDEs, dioxins and furans, the organochlorine pesticides DDT, chlordane, dieldrin, and selenium for shorter periods.

SAN FRANCISCO (KTVU) - In the last few days, many Bay Area storm sewers got their biggest flush out, spewing all kinds of nasty materials out into the Bay.Most Bay Area cities have two sewer systems, one for human waste, the other for storm runoff.

In runoff systems anything that goes into the sewer or is already in it ultimately goes into the Bay. Then huge storms come along, which can dislodge toxics, some of which are stuck in sewers for decades.