PROJECT LEADER, “State of the Bay” Report
With funding from the US Environmental Agency and the state of California, I took on a Herculean task: to find out if San Francisco Bay is healthy. Before beginning, it took me and my colleagues a decade to invent a method, bring the right experts together and figure out how to organize masses of data on everything from wetlands to wildlife, pollution to dredging, salt ponds to bay trails. Only with that underway could we find out if we were doing enough to protect the health of the bay.
The first report made its debut in 2011. It was given the banner headline in the SF Chronicle. In the Mercury News I was quoted saying, “We still have a way to go. Starting with the Gold Rush, we had a century of degrading the bay. And we’ve only been restoring it since the early 1970s.”
I’m proud to say the State of the Bay report continues on today. If you want to know if it’s safe to swim in the bay, eat fish you catch or find out if invasive species of plants are on the rise, it’s the place to look.
PHOTO: JUDY IRVING
San Francisco Bay is a vital stopover for birds migrating along the coast of North America
PROJECT LEADER, “State of the Bay” Report
With funding from the US Environmental Agency and the state of California, I took on a Herculean task: to find out if San Francisco Bay is healthy. Before beginning, it took me and my colleagues a decade to invent a method, bring the right experts together and figure out how to organize masses of data on everything from wetlands to wildlife, pollution to dredging, salt ponds to bay trails. Only with that underway could we find out if we were doing enough to protect the health of the bay.
The first report made its debut in 2011. It was given the banner headline in the SF Chronicle. In the Mercury News I was quoted saying, “We still have a way to go. Starting with the Gold Rush, we had a century of degrading the bay. And we’ve only been restoring it since the early 1970s.”
I’m proud to say the State of the Bay report continues on today. If you want to know if it’s safe to swim in the bay, eat fish you catch or find out if invasive species of plants are on the rise, it’s the place to look.
PHOTO: JUDY IRVING
San Francisco Bay is a vital stopover for birds migrating along the coast of North America