Suisun Marsh Salinity Control Structure
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| A salinity control structure on Montezuma Slough is part of the engineering infrastructure built to restore the habitat of the marsh. These gates are opened when water flowing out of the delta is fresh (generally in the winter) and are closed when the salt water creeps back up the Bay in the summer. This brings fresh water into the slough, from which it is pumped and channeled into portions of the marsh. Suisun Marsh may be the largest single estuarine marsh in the United States. It covers around 100,000 acres of land and marsh, severely altered by decades of farming, which drained and leveed much of the area. Farming died out early in the century due to increasing salinity of the available water, a problem which also further altered the ecology of the marsh. Salt water was intruding due to upstream water diversions to Central Valley agriculture, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. Less fresh water coming down the delta means that salt water from the Bay travels further upstream. Engineering and management efforts are underway to surmount the partitioned landscape and restore fresh water to the marsh. The big activity in the marsh has been, and continues to be, duck hunting. There are over 150 privately owned parcels in the marsh, and most of them are former or active hunt clubs. Hunting is regulated by the Department of Fish and Game, out of their headquarters on Grizzly Island. |
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Montezuma
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| Most of Suisun Marsh is in the hands of private duck hunting clubs, and the dikes and levees that control the wetlands are mostly privately owned and managed as well. Around a third of the marsh is controlled by the state and is managed as a wildlife area, where hunting and fishing is the primary activity. More sloughs than roads snake through these low lands, and access to many of the clubs is by water. The only public road through this vast and remote place is from Fairfield, off Highway 12. Grizzly Island Road heads south through the state wildlife areas, past the refuge headquarters, to a dead-end at the Salinity Control Structure. |
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http://wwwoco.water.ca.gov/indexo.html
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Control Structure
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Dam, Water
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