About four years ago California paid 100 million dollars to Cargill for 16,500 acres of land it owned fringing the SF Bay. For nearly a century, much of the Bay’s southern shoreline had been diked off from the tides and fenced off from the public. Where fertile wetlands once supported diverse wildlife, private companies created evaporator ponds to extract salt. Now tens of thousands of volunteers come out to pull weeds on the weekends and on weekdays, heavy equipment operators break holes through low earthen levees and haul dirt down to the south bay to fill channels. Birds and other wildlife are coming back. We will look at the history of salt making in the Bay area and the largest wetlands restoration in the west - $1 billion project that will, over fifty years, roll back the clock to the Bay's pre-industrial conditions.
You may listen to the Legacy of Salt Radio report online, as well as find additional links and resources. Also see additional photos for this story.
Andrea Kissack is Senior Editor for QUEST at KQED Public Radio.