Building Tomorrow’s Marshes

Twenty years ago, Central California’s Hester Marsh was on the brink of disappearing beneath the region’s rising seas. Now, thanks to a mix of dedicated planning, research, restoration, and—most recently—$2,200,000 in funding from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL), Hester is on track to thrive for generations to come.

“We are pioneering the building of really high, climate-ready tidal marshes for tomorrow,” says Monique Fountain, director of the Elkhorn Slough Reserve’s Tidal Wetland Program, a collaborative effort that has engaged more than 100 people and many organizations in restoring and protecting the area’s iconic coastal landscape, from oyster reefs and eelgrass beds to marshes and native grasslands.

“Getting marsh vegetation to colonize an area that is so high and dry takes some special measures,” she says, noting that the team has moved more 460,000 cubic yards of soil to create Hester’s new home. “We hope that what we learn will help others try this in other parts of California.”

The timing of the federal funding is crucial for this effort to protect the marsh and the many benefits it provides, from helping to protect water quality and preventing erosion to providing a home for thousands of species and reducing flooding. With the BIL grant, the team expanded the size of the project, engaged more community members, and began to intensively monitor the success of an approach that is, effectively, speeding up a natural process that normally takes hundreds of years. 

“My hero Joy Zedler tried to convince the NERRS and anyone who would listen to always incorporate well-designed and monitored experiments into large-scale restoration,” says Kerstin Wasson, research coordinator at the Reserve. “With this funding, we can put her vision into practice, collaborating with graduate student interns to test different factors, from facilitation by “nurse plants” to microbiome amendments to soil decompaction. We will learn from experimental restoration how to enhance success here and elsewhere.”

The additional support has also allowed the team to scale up nursery production of native Olympia oysters. Last year, they planted 100,000 baby oysters in the estuary, using mesh covered PVC pipes. This approach compensates for the two feet of “soft organic goop” that has developed on the Slough’s button after decades without oysters. Last fall, the team found that the native oyster population was reproducing again, giving cause for many in the community to celebrate, including the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band.

“Elkhorn Slough is the only large estuary within the ancestral homeland of the Tribe,” notes Jacob Harris, director of the Ocean Program for the Amah Mutsun Land Trust. “Returning to their legacy of coastal stewardship is a priority for the Tribe, and it has meant a lot to reconnect with shellfish by partnering with the NERR over the past years on oyster restoration and monitoring.”

When the work supported by the BIL grant is done, the Reserve team and their partners will be there to continue to restore and protect these special places. Like all Reserves, the Elkhorn Slough Reserve is “designed to see projects like this through in the long run,” according to Wasson. Not only because they protect lands, but also because each Reserve has an integrated team of GIS, stewardship, ecological, and engagement specialists who can approach this work in a holistic way.

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