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Marsh Studies of South
San Francisco Bay |
Under the terms of the current discharge permit issued to the San Jose/Santa Clara Water Pollution Control Plant, Salt Marsh Vegetative Assessments must be performed in 2010 and 2012.
Salt marsh assessments are performed over a study area that covers a large portion of the waterways in the Lower South San Francisco Bay. In the early years, the assessments were performed using aerial photography. Nowadays, GEOEYE-1 satellite photos are taken near low tide around the month of May of the study year. The photos are used to assess which types of marsh plants (salt, brackish, or fresh) inhabit each portion of the study area. Researchers later field verify the photo assessments.
The San Jose/Santa Clara Water Pollution Control Plant has performed marsh vegetative assessment studies since 1989. These studies compare year-by-year acreages of Salt marsh (SM) to acreages of brackish marsh (BM) and freshwater marsh (FM). The initial concern in the late 1980s was that salt marsh, the prime habitat to the endangered Clapper Rail and Salt Marsh Harvest Mouse, was converting to brackish or fresh water marsh as a result of the large volume of fresh water discharged by the Plant. In 2010, with the completion of the 18th assessment of a monitoring program spanning 21 years, it is apparent that the salt marshes in the lower South San Francisco Bay are not threatened as a result of fresh water discharge from the Plant.
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