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photo by Donald Kinney
Well, if we are going to blame anything I guess it may just as well be gold.
click photo for full-size image
photo by Donald Kinney
Before the advent of hydraulic mining (the process of reducing gold-bearing hillsides to mud and silt) San Pablo Bay teemed with aquatic life of all sorts. Today, scarcely more than 150 years later the perimeter and depths of the bay has shrunk dramatically.
click photo for full-size image
photo by Donald Kinney
With less gold mining activity in the Sierra the problem of silt flowing into San Pablo Bay has slowed, but now San Pablo Bay is the victim of fresh water diversions for agricultural uses in our Central Valley. Not enough water flows in from the Sacramento Delta, and salinity levels have risen.
Intertidal species such as the Bay Shrimp can withstand a little salt, but not a lot, and subsequently their numbers which once supported a busy fishery here at China Camp have dwindled to almost zero.
click photo for full-size image
photo by Donald Kinney
But the birds still fly... The sun still rises... It's just that San Pablo Bay was ruined by those damn gold-miners first, and then by ranchers and farmers who decided they needed the cool-clean Sierra snowpack water more than the aquatic life in San Pablo Bay.
So there you go--as Ronald Reagan said at the end of each General Electric Theater episode [1953 - 1962]; "Progress is our most important product".
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1 comment:
Progress is necessary but sure has its compromises.
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