June 2004

Contra Costa Times
Suisun wetland cleanup crawls painfully forward
June 20, 2004
Mike Taugher

Despite the cattails, tules and peat-rich soil that help make this one of the state's richest ecological treasures, California's largest coastal wetland smells more like a truck stop.

It has been nearly two months since one of the largest petroleum pipeline spills in recent Bay Area history poured an estimated 85,000 gallons of diesel fuel into prime duck-rearing habitat in Suisun Marsh.

In the hardest-hit area, the ground remains so heavily soaked that when cleanup crews dig a trench, they watch fuel dribble from cracks in the peat.

"It's been two months and you can see the oil pour in. It's something else," said Harry L. Allen, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's emergency response coordinator.

Bounding the northern shore of Suisun Bay, the sprawling plain along Interstate 680 between Benicia and Fairfield known as Suisun Marsh is a place of surprising significance. It accounts for 10 percent of all wetlands left in California. It is the largest contiguous protected area in the San Francisco Bay and Delta estuary, and it is the largest tidal marsh on the entire North American West Coast.

It is an important stopover for migrating birds on the Pacific Flyway and is a major nursery for fish. The toll on wildlife has appeared relatively light, but four dozen animals, including ducks, a muskrat, a beaver and what biologists believe might be endangered species of mice have been killed or injured.

"People call it a wasteland, but (in the natural world) this is where everything starts," said Alan Nack of the California Department of Fish and Game.

When the pipeline broke and spilled diesel fuel into the marsh April 27, it could have caused major damage in a sensitive area.

Luckily, levees and channel gates contained the spill within a 220-acre duck club. It affected only part of the duck club, which lies in the western portion of the 58,000-acre marsh.

But the diesel has wreaked havoc in some spots.

Nearly eight weeks after the rusty pipe broke open, 60 workers and managers are at the marsh cleanup seven days a week.

Diesel-fouled water is collected in trenches, skimmed and cleaned with diesel-absorbing "diapers." Once all the diesel that can be captured in that fashion is collected, the plan is to use bacteria to break down the remainder, an operation that will require tilling and fertilizing the ground.

It could be next year before work at the most polluted portion, known as Area A, ends.

The head of the Suisun Resource Conservation District, an association of landowners here, said migrating and wintering birds could be affected if the cleanup is not finished by fall. In the meantime, the cleanup trucks and heavy equipment are having their own effect, he said.

"It may still be many years before the habitat is restored to its values before the spill," said Steven Chappell, conservation district executive director.

"All that work that is going on has affected a bigger area of the marsh," Chappell added. "I still haven't gotten a clear feel for how long it will be before that site will be completed."

Wildlife officials say a couple of hundred additional birds were probably injured or killed but simply have not been found.

"We haven't collected a lot of wildlife, and the reason is these animals make their living by hiding," said Carl Jochums, a state fish and game environmental scientist.

Perhaps 100 ducks were nesting in the area of the spill, he said.

"We haven't seen anything close to 100 ducks," Jochums said. "Where did they go?"

In addition, federal biologists believe two mice that were found dead are endangered salt marsh harvest mice. They are awaiting results of genetic tests.

The presence of endangered mice threatens to complicate the cleanup. Officials with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service are proposing measures such as hand-trimming vegetation, shepherding mice and then catching them for relocation.

There are no estimates for the cost of the cleanup, but the bill will go to the pipeline's owner, Kinder Morgan.

"It's going to be very expensive," said Allen, the EPA coordinator.