Final report confirms: dredging Bolinas Lagoon would be futile

A new report confirms that the Sierra Club, the Environmental Action Committee, and American Rivers were right to insist on sound science rather than conventional wisdom for decisions about Bolinas Lagoon.

The Final Reports on the Bolinas Lagoon Restoration Project (released Feb. 6) provide extensive evidence that the lagoon is unlikely to close and that dredging is not justified at this time. This final conclusion mirrors that of the initial report.

The Phil Williams report concludes: "Although the tidal prism is projected to decline over the next 50 years, Bolinas Lagoon is expected to maintain an open connection to the ocean." Likewise the Roger Byrne report concludes: "Is Bolinas Lagoon "filling in" at a rate that will lead to its extinction and conversion to freshwater marsh or meadow within the next 50 years? The answer, almost certainly, is no." The Technical Review states: "we find that the basic conclusion is about as well supported as might ever be expected."

How did the proposal ever arise for the Army Corps of Engineers to dredge 1.4 million cubic yards out of this ecological treasure? It was based on the conventional wisdom that the lagoon was filling in and was in "imminent danger of closing".

It is understandable how conventional wisdom went wrong. The Technical Review notes: "the most visible recent changes in lagoon condition are the increases in tidal marshes and tidal flats on the west side of the fault line, near the town of Bolinas, its harbor, and its access road. These changes are locally important, but have had no measurable effect on the lagoon mouth or the tidal range inside the lagoon... However, the high visibility of these changes can nurture a public concern that exceeds what is warranted by their actual effect on the lagoon ecosystem as a whole.

Decades of this unwarranted public concern and lobbying for immediate dredging may not easily be calmed by these 200 pages of Final Reports, regardless of how technically competent they are. The Sierra Club remains concerned that the Administrative Record lacks an easily understandable take-home message that captures the reports' conclusion.

WhatYouCanDo

Write to:

Marin County Open Space District
Attn: William Carmen, Bolinas Lagoon Project Manager
3501 Civic Center Drive, #415
San Rafael, CA 94903.

Urge the District to adopt an easily understandable statement, to be prominently featured at the front of the Administrative Record, that no intercession in the evolution of the lagoon to prevent its closure is warranted.

Gordon Bennett, chair, Marin Group