Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
charged with protecting many urban communities with much higher
property values.
The people of California now had a more stable water supply, stronger
flood protections, and regular dredging programs to speed inland naviga-
tion. But as these activities started to curb the flow of fresh water into the
bay and divert it outside the system, and as droughts further depleted
these outflows, the tides crept upstream. This phenomenon marked the
beginning of a saltwater intrusion problem—in which salt water reaches
fresh drinking water intakes—that continues to plague water managers
and engineers to this day.
At the time, federal engineers proposed building a giant dam across
Suisun Bay to solve the problem. The thought was that the dam would
keep the salty ocean on one side and the fresh river water on the other, and
remake the lower delta into a giant reservoir to boot. Dickering over how
and where such a salinity barrier could be built lasted 30 years, but re-
sulted in nothing concrete except the creation of the extraordinary Bay
Model in Sausalito. (This three-dimensional, 1.5-acre model, open to visi-
tors today, simulates tides and currents in the estuary.) Later, engineers
turned their attention upstream and sought to solve the intrusion problem
with a peripheral canal (see p. 190, “Warring over Water”).
World War II fueled another growth spurt around the bay, and the region's
second major population boom in a century followed. The first boom at-
tracted people with the promise of “gold in them thar hills,” and the sec-
ond with permanent jobs in the aftermath of the war. Thousands had
come to work the military and civilian production lines of the wartime
period. After the war, many of these workers decided to stay on—attracted
not only by the growth in industry and jobs but also by the region's unique
coastal beauty and mild climate.
The Bay Area population tripled during and after the war, swelling to
over three million by 1960. Houses, shops, businesses, and industries grew
up all around the bay, taking over space once occupied by small farms and
pastures. Many acres of the surrounding watershed disappeared under
buildings and pavement with the swell of urbanization; many acres of
open water also disappeared as developers filled them in to create cheap
new real estate. More roads, and more railroads, laid their lanes and lines
along the bay's accommodatingly flat shoreline.
Though many of the region's residents moved toward land-based work,
