Park biologists were amazed to discover an immediate bounty of rare species: Tidewater goby, small fish thought to be eliminated from the area, were found in Tomasini Creek, on the property's east side. Elsewhere, biologists found western pond turtles and California red-legged frogs.
To accommodate the protected species, project planners created separate refuges.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Wednesday, October 29, 2008 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 1 inches; 38 words Type of Material: Correction
Wetlands restoration: In Sunday's California section, a caption with a story about the restoration of Marin County wetlands suggested that a bird shown in the photograph was a red-necked phalarope. The bird in the picture was an egret.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Sunday, November 02, 2008 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 1 inches; 41 words Type of Material: Correction
Wetlands restoration: In the California section on Oct. 26, a caption with an article about the restoration of Marin County wetlands suggested that a bird shown in the photograph was a red-necked phalarope. The bird in the photo was an egret.
Birds already throng to Point Reyes, which is on the Pacific Flyway. Roughly 45% of North American bird species can be found in the area. But now in the wetlands, rarely seen shorebirds such as greater yellowlegs and the red-necked phalarope have made themselves at home, as have clapper rails, California black rails and northern harriers, also known as marsh hawks.
Otters and seals are becoming more common in Lagunitas Creek, a popular destination for kayakers. White sturgeon, steelhead, chinook and coho salmon thrive in the waters. In fact, the state's largest recorded coho, 22 pounds, was pulled from Lagunitas Creek in 1959. About 15% of California's coho are found in this watershed.
Restoring the wetlands will do more than help fish, said Lorraine Parsons, a wetlands ecologist with the park service. The project should help protect a small group of homes at the south end of the property that are regularly flooded.
"When they leveed this, they took out about 50% of the Tomales Bay watershed," she said. "It no longer served as a filtering tool for the water here; it didn't help in flood control."
The project was jump-started by $4 million from a California Department of Transportation mitigation fund that allowed the park service to acquire the land from the Giacomini family in 2000. After that, the Point Reyes National Seashore Assn., a nonprofit group that funds park projects, scrounged to find $6 million to finance the complicated restoration.
"It's funny. You'd think that it would be easy to take down levees," Parsons said. "Just come in and mow them down. But actually it has to be given a lot of thought."
After barns, fences and irrigation material were removed, heavy-equipment operators followed precisely drawn plans to shave and reshape the berms over months. Lighter equipment with special treads was used in boggy areas, and many of the trucks removing soil operated on bio-diesel fuel.
Most federal projects of this size can be expected to draw opposition, but the Giacomini Wetlands effort has garnered surprisingly wide approval, in part because the public will have access to much of the site once it's fully restored.
The park, established in 1962, draws about 2.2 million visitors a year, many from the San Francisco Bay Area 40 miles to the south.
"Park service restoration projects often take place in wilderness or in backcountry," Parsons said. "No one sees them. This is a project that is happening in front of everyone.
"People are excited. A local woman called me and we talked about the project. She said her whole family was following it. Her 3-year-old was beginning to identify the yellow excavator and the orange one, and the bulldozers. Meanwhile, her 17-year-old was outside with a spotting scope identifying different birds. That's pretty cool."
--
julie.cart@latimes.com
