Redwood City’s Bair Island gets investment for critical restoration efforts 

Once an unprotected wetland on the verge of housing multiunit residential developments, Bair Island is now part of a $2 million federal funding boost meant to stimulate ecological restoration efforts and stave off dangerous effects of sea-level rise. 

The news came directly from U.S. Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland, who made the announcement at the 3,000-acre Redwood City island Wednesday, March 27, stating the investment in the Don Edwards San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge aims to combat threats to biodiversity and local communities as a result of climate change. 

“Investing in our landscapes and expanding nature-based solutions are critical to maintaining the connection to the land for future generations,” Haaland said. “This work, made possible by the president’s Investing in America agenda, will benefit underserved communities, as well as the greater Bay Area by securing connections along a 500-mile Bay Trail system, a critical transportation network in the dense urban core.”

Bair Island — part of the 30,000-acre Don Edwards refuge —  has been the subject of controversy for close to 40 years, starting with a grassroots movement protesting a proposed development on the wetlands. But it’s seen quite a transformation over the past decade. Even after it was protected in 1997 by the Peninsula Open Space Trust, little to no vegetation grew in the area until for nearly another 20 years, after the global agricultural conglomerate Cargill had sold back its mineral rights — previously used for large-scale salt production — and robust restoration initiatives got underway. Such efforts run parallel to others like the South Bay Restoration Project, which revert thousands of former industrial salt ponds in the area back to their natural habitats.

But more work remains, said Ivette Loredo, wildlife refuge specialist at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Agency, which manages the land’s ecological initiatives. Elevating the islands, for instance, is one of the most critical restoration projects to maintain endangered species’ habitat, particularly as tides become more extreme due to climate change.

“We do that for a lot of our restoration sites because, for the species that live in the marsh, particularly the Ridgway’s rail and salt marsh harvest mouse, when the tides are extremely high, they’re sort of trapped,” Loredo said. “Sediments come in with the tides, so marshes actually grow on their own with the increase in elevations. It’s just a matter of if they’re going to be able to keep up [with climate change].”

Wade Crowfoot, secretary of the California Natural Resources Agency, added that ecosystems like Bair Island are important not just for the species living there but for the surrounding communities living close to the coast. 

“We know that conserving wetlands in the Bay Area is really important. Wetlands serve as that sponge that soaks up those big atmospheric river winter storms that are coming and help us reduce the impact of sea-level rise,” he said. 

The investment is part of the 2021 behemoth bipartisan infrastructure law that authorized $2 trillion to fund a wide array of infrastructure upgrades and projects and would not just go toward environmental conservation but to large-scale transportation and broadband access initiatives as well. The Department of the Interior recently announced $157 million in BIL funding for more than 200 environmental projects throughout the country.