Minutes of Public Hearing on Permit Application No. 14-98 from Montezuma Wetlands, LLC, to Use Dredge Materials to Construct Wetlands in the Suisun Marsh, in an unincorporated area of Solano County near Collinsville.
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Once a thriving salmon fishing hub, the historic little town of Collinsville remains a hidden retreat for duck hunters, bird-watchers and the several dozen people who live there.
Situated where the Sacramento River meets the San Joaquin River to create the Delta, Collinsville lies east of the 57,000-acre Suisun Marsh, the largest marsh in Northern California.
As spring approaches, the water grasses are turning green and the seedpods are swelling. Yet, the honking waterfowl and cooing quail belie what might be in store for 1,620 acres adjacent to the town.
Prodded by the Port of Oakland, federal and state resource agencies appear ready to issue the last in a series of permits that would allow the dumping and covering of so-called chemically challenged dredge spoils along the Montezuma Slough, which cuts through the uplands to the Delta.
The agencies deem it a "win-win" situation, saying this will help the port dispose of at least a fourth of the 13 million cubic yards it will begin dredging in April, as it makes room for the container ships that are its economic lifeblood. At the same time, the spoils will be used to create wetlands for wildlife, a prized natural resource around the bay.
But the opposition is fierce among those who live along the shoreline and among the generations of ranchers and grain farmers in the vast, sparsely populated Montezuma Hills upland on the site.
The locals, backed by environmental groups, say the parade of around-the- clock barges would destroy this authentic slice of California's agrarian history and -- instead of creating new wildlife habitat -- would ruin the sensitive home for wildlife on and near the Suisun Marsh.
"You come here today or a month from today, you probably won't meet a car. It's as it was a century ago," said Lesley Emmington, sweeping an arm toward the rolling Montezuma Hills, which lie off Highway 12 between Suisun and Rio Vista. "It's a combination of dryland farming and unspoiled waterfront along the Sacramento River, wetlands and historic farms."
Emmington's grandfather acquired the town of Collinsville around 1900. Her family still owns 15 acres on the waterfront, adjacent to the proposed project.
Next month, the Bay Conservation and Development Commission and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will decide whether to issue the permits to Levine- Fricke Restoration Corp., an Emeryville company that owns the land. If the permits are approved, barges would soon start bringing in the first 3.5 million cubic yards of the mud -- 15 percent of it so contaminated that it is unsuitable for aquatic disposal.
The permits would allow disposal of as much as 17 million cubic yards of dredge spoils, not limited to the port's, over 15 years.
"Nobody's presented any evidence to refute all the independent technical studies that concluded that the sediments and the discharges of overflow from handling the sediments isn't going to hurt anything," said company President Jim Levine.
He would not disclose how much money he expected to earn from the project, which would involve making a slurry of the dredge spoils, pouring it into low- lying areas and then draining the water off into a pond. Some of that would flow to the bay. The engineers would then cover the "chemically challenged" mud with clean fill, and once the land is built up, they would breach the levees.
Yet Emmington and others worry that the project could go awry and spill metal-laced contaminants that could reach the Delta. Because the county rezoned the entire Suisun Marsh to accommodate the mud works, it could expand over time or open the way for similar projects, opponents say.
In other situations, environmentalists have supported using a limited amount of the cleanest of Port of Oakland's dredge materials in some restoration projects.
For instance, Sonoma Baylands on Highway 37 has taken some from Oakland. Wetlands restorers want to use some at the former Hamilton Air Force Base in Marin County, and environmentalists agreed to put clean, sandy material in Oakland's Middle Harbor.
Under Oakland's plan, the worst 200,000 cubic yards would be dried out and used in construction.
But of the 800,000 cubic yards of second-class spoils -- which port spokesman Jim McGrath calls "chemically challenged" -- half would go to Montezuma Slough, if the permits are approved. The other half might go to Mare Island, if the city of Vallejo would take it as a way to earn money, McGrath said.
If Levine-Fricke doesn't get the permit, "it would add 5 percent cost to the project. That's not chump change. But it wouldn't kill the project," McGrath said.
Opponents of the project note that the land near Montezuma Slough already serves as a seasonal wetland. Environmental reviews show that it provides habitat for 15 sensitive native plant species and 90 species of birds, including rare ones, such as the American white pelican, black-crowned night heron, golden eagle, loggerhead shrike, horned lark and burrowing owl.
San Franciscan Tule West, nicknamed by her mother Carolyn Ward for the tall, gangly reeds that pepper the Delta, spent almost every weekend and summer of her life in a turn-of-the-century schoolhouse moved to the slough's edge.
"I take my children for walks along the levee. We can see three otters eating the red swamp crayfish that burrow in the mud. Blue herons and white egrets stand in the shallows of the water and look for fish. You can hear the geese and see white pelicans roosting out on the ponds of Suisun Marsh," said West.
While the opponents contend that the project is merely an expedient solution to the problem of finding a dump site for Oakland's dredge materials unsuitable for aquatic disposal, nearly every public agency appears to back the plan.
In the early 1990s, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Board, Bay Conservation and Development Commission, State Lands Commission, Corps of Engineers and several members of California's congressional delegation signed on to the highly publicized "marriage in mud" to find Oakland a suitable place for dredge materials.
The regional water board's approval in November includes the statement: "Permitting of the restoration project was a priority since the Port of Oakland's 50-foot deepening project is dependent upon its implementation."
Larry Kolb, deputy administrator of the regional board, said, "If you accept the need for dredging, you're faced with the problem of disposal. We think the worst alternative is dumping in the bay. The next worst is dumping in the ocean. The most desirable, on the other hand, is disposal on land.
"When that involves wetland restoration, it's about as good as it gets," he continued. "We're most confident that pollutants that are well buried won't contaminate animals and plants."
In separate actions, environmental attorneys Brian Gaffney, representing Friends of Suisun Marsh and Save the Bay, and Michael Lozeau, representing both those groups as well as WaterKeepers Northern California, have challenged decisions over the project.
Lozeau argues that once the spoils are made into a slurry, they will create a discharge that needs a special permit under the federal Clean Water Act.
Gaffney argues that Solano County illegally rezoned the land to provide for a large-scale industrial activity without a proper environmental analysis of the contaminated spoils and a potential toxic threat from at least one open pond.
"It's an amazing thing that a huge marsh and major wildlife area could survive near a large urban population. It's truly an extraordinary area,' said Joe Engbeck, a longtime Berkeley environmentalist who opposes the project.
"Duck hunters don't realize what the toxic waters in that pond could do. It's undoubtedly going to attract waterfowl. I wouldn't want to have toxic duck for dinner."
The Bay Conservation and Development Commission has scheduled a public hearing on the project at Oakland's Metro Center on Thursday at 1 p.m. For more information on the hearing, call (415) 352-3600. / E-mail Jane Kay at jkay@sfchronicle.com
COLLINSVILLE, Calif. -- A plan to dredge mud from the Port of Oakland and dump it in the Suisun Marsh may be under way by this spring, said Solano County officials.
The Montezuma Wetlands Project has been fought by environmentalists who say the soil could bring contamination to the marsh.
Supporters of the project say it will help the San Francisco Bay area as well as Solano County.
The deeper port will allow big ships to get through easily and the extra mud may help rebuild the Solano County wetlands lost to development, said county environmental planner Ronald Glas.
Solano County will earn about $4 million for taking the mud over 10 years.
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