Wetlands Victory

For more than a century, farmers and developers have transformed California’s wetlands and marshes into cropland and housing tracts. Only about 5% of the state’s original wetlands remain. But now, in a cooperative venture that is a model for the rest of California, part of the Sacramento Valley has been returned to a more natural state as the 3,400-acre Yolo Bypass Wildlife Area.

More than eight years of effort, including habitat development costing $17 million, will culminate Saturday with President Clinton’s dedication of the new refuge in the Yolo Bypass, a massive flood control channel just west of Sacramento. The area will be managed by the state Department of Fish and Game as a new stopping ground for the hundreds of thousands of waterfowl migrating along the Pacific Flyway.

The lesson of the Yolo refuge, Secretary of Interior Bruce Babbitt said when construction began, is that “agriculture, wildlife and a dynamic urban area can work together.”

The two-mile-wide bypass, essentially a huge ditch, was originally built to carry floodwaters of the Sacramento River around the capital during winter storms. In dry periods, the table-flat land is planted in crops. For years, environmentalists have sought ways to make portions of the bypass more amenable to migratory birds, including ducks, geese, swans, cranes and even eagles. But the project was immensely complicated. Land had to be purchased from private owners. State and federal flood control agencies had to be convinced that new wildlife habitat could be created without impeding flood flows. The participants had to work around endangered species laws.

At the center of the effort was the volunteer Yolo Basin Foundation. Others involved included Ducks Unlimited, a hunters organization, and the state and federal agencies dealing with flood control and wildlife management. Financing was a joint federal-state effort.

Shoreline areas have been made habitat-friendly by dredging and bulldozing. Ponds were built and sustained through the use of dikes, pumps and channels. Educational tours are beginning. Officials call it the largest wetland restoration project west of the Florida Everglades. Build a model like this and the birds will come, on whispering wings.