OAKLAND’S CONTORTIONISTS
A commissioned study helps reclaim acres thought to be wetlands
By Lindsay M. Hitch, Assistant Editor
October 2001
THE BIG DIG
To further that point, the Port of Oakland
brought in a team of consultants to determine which areas truly are jurisdictional
wetlands.
Gail Staba, transportation planner and environmental
planning supervisor, explains that there are a number of wetland "indicators".
The process required figuring out which of those indicators were present
on Oakland’s property, and which were legitimate.
"The way you determine a wetland has
to do with the type of soil you have. When they’re wet for a long
time they don’t have oxygen in them, so they turn a color,"
says Staba. "It has to do with vegetation, and [whether] water’s
there or not. If you have one of those indicators, then you have a wetland."
A team of consultants worked on the airfield
for about six months, digging holes and checking the soil color and looking
at the types of vegetation. Even in an area made of fill from the Bay,
the scientists were able to prove that much of the airport property is
not wetland.
"That’s one of the more interesting
aspects to me," says McKenney. "The airport has been filled
over decades and decades from a whole bunch of different sources, including
the bottom of the Bay sources; looking at the soil you don’t know.
That’s not original soil. So is it a wetland or did it become a wetland
or is it just the old Bay mud that you had in there that isn’t a
wetland anymore?"
Mitigation Efforts Across The Bay
Wetlands restoration projects are underway all around the San Francisco Bay Area. The National Audubon Society and a number of environmental groups are pushing for a total restoration of 100,000 acres. San Francisco International Airport (SFO) is involved in a number of these projects with a goal of 558 acres improved at approximately $16,500,000.
• Mountain Lake
Park: restoration of Mountain Lake Park; partnership with Department
of Recreation and Parks and the Golden Gate National Recreation
Area; $500,000 from SFO
• Crissy Field: restoration of
20 acres of tidal marsh in the Presidio; partnership with Golden
Gate National Parks Association; $ 3 million from SFO; under construction
• India Basin — Hunter’s
Point Recreation Area: restoration of 3.4 acres of tidal salt marsh;
extension of San Francisco Bay Trail; partnership with the Department
of Recreation and Parks
• Bayview Hunters Point Shipyard:
creation of 18 acres of wetlands; partnership with San Francisco’s
Redevelopment Agency
• Candlestick Point State Recreation
Area: feasibility studies for tidal/seasonal marsh creation; partnership
with California Department of Parks and Recreation; $500,000 from
SFO for studies and future construction
• Oliver Brothers Salt Ponds:
restoration and enhancement of 324 acres of wetlands; partnership
with the Hayward Area Recreation & Park District; completion by
end of 2001
• West-of-Bayshore: enhancement
of 8.5 acres of seasonal marsh on airport property
• Outer Bair Island: creation
of 37.5 acres of wetlands; enhancement of 140 acres of existing
wetlands; partnership with California Department of Fish and Game
• Palo Alto Harbor Point: restoration
of 7.2 acres of tidal marsh; partnership with the City of Palo Alto
Source: San Francisco Int’l Airport
Staba says, "It took this major effort
to be able to talk to the Corps of Engineers in their language; to get
scientific evidence that in fact there were areas that they were considering
things that were helping the natural ecosystem, which were in fact just
[normal land]."
The delineation project was a $750,000 effort.
The airport and Port of Oakland feel it was well worth the money, as they
were able to prove with scientific evidence that about 125 acres believed
to be wetlands were in fact normal and available for development. Five
hundred acres of Oakland International Airport’s 2500-acre property
are jurisdictional wetlands.
"It was a major concerted effort to
just delineate wetlands. Typically that would be a much smaller amount
of dollars spent, a much quicker process," says McKenney.
She explains that many airports wait until
they have a specific project in mind and rush through delineation. Oakland’s
delineation efforts are not directly tied to a project. Expansion projects
are on the horizon, but determining the wetland areas was done in an effort
to better understand the make-up of the airport’s property and its
effect on the local ecosystem, says McKenney.
Staba says it seemed that every time something
needed to be expanded or built to further the operation of the airport
they had to go through the same delineation process.
"Kristi [McKenney] decided this time
around it would make sense to actually do the science and to have a good
delineation," says Staba. "So we went to the Corps of Engineers
and said, ’We’ve looked at everywhere on our airport. This is
what we think.’ And we went through this negotiating process."
WORKING AROUNDNATURAL RESOURCES
McKenney says that looking at a map of Oakland
International Airport often begs the question, Why did they build that
there? It is often followed by, Why didn’t they build it over there?
Those questions are usually in reference
to the Central Basin, a large salt pan northeast of the main runway. The
nature of the Central Basin as a contiguous, high-quality wetland and
a habitat for shore birds makes it too environmentally important to disturb
for airport development.
There are similar arguments for wetland
areas all around the airport. McKenney says that over the years projects
have been shaped around those areas, rather than disturb them, making
for somewhat unusual architecture.
In planning the airport development program,
working around the wetlands was again a priority.
Oakland’s Airport Development Program
cargo space for FedEx and other carriers
Although the wetlands delineation was a project in and of itself, the airport is in need of some major improvements, and will have them soon.
Oakland’s
airport development program consists of 18 separate projects in
cargo facilities, terminal expansion, parking, roadways, and other
landside areas. There is little planned for the airfield aside from
minor improvements, although the airport will have additional ramp
space for aircraft parking overnight.
In the late ’80s, Federal Express
decided to make Oakland Int’l its West Coast hub. The airport’s
cargo facilities are now dominated by FedEx and UPS and serve a
number of other carriers as well.
"Nationwide, we are the 13th
largest air cargo airport. And in the world I think we’re 25th,"
says Cyndy Johnson, aviation marketing and media relations.
Development plans include new cargo
areas. Of note is a planned multi-tenant cargo facility that will
service operators who will only use the airport once or twice a
week and don’t want to establish a base.
Terminal expansion is also a major
part of the development plans. After Southwest Airlines initiated
service in 1989, the airport saw a sharp increase in passenger traffic.
With cheaper fares and the option to avoid Bay Bridge traffic, much
of the population east of San Francisco Bay began to take advantage
of flights out of Oakland. Johnson estimates that the airport is
handling 4 to 5 million more passengers each year than its "comfort"
capacity.
The new terminal will have 12 gates,
a 50 percent increase for Oakland, and a double-level roadway with
ticketing and departures on the upper level and arrivals and baggage
claim on the lower level.
Kristi McKenney, aviation planning
manager, adds, "This is by no means a build it and they will
come. This is they’re already here, we need a place for them
to go."
Additional plans include:
• Airport roadway project
• Airport Drive access reconfiguration
• Parking garage
• Replacement parking lots (during
construction of garage)
• Replacement rental car facilities
(relocated to garage upon completion)
• Runway 11/29 taxiway access
widening
• Taxiway U widening
• North Field replacement T-hangar
facilities
• Provisioning building (in-flight
catering, etc.)
• Ground equipment service center
• Jet fuel dispensing facility
• United Airlines maintenance
base expansion
"At the end of the day, after going
through and massaging the projects down to keeping them on as much upland
or existing developed property as possible, we ended up with 7.76 acres
of wetlands that would need to be filled to build all of these projects,"
says McKenney.
McKenney stresses that those 7.76 acres
are not contiguous, but rather 0.4 acres of a ditch, 0.1 acres somewhere
else, an acre in another area, etc.
"They’re very much discreet little
pieces of drainage channels, of other things. Some of them we’ve
determined in our new map wouldn’t even be considered wetland anymore.
But at that time, we accepted them; we’re mitigating for them anyway,"
says McKenney. "So our argument was twofold. One, that we were developing
about 160 acres of paved area in an area with this many wetlands, and
yet only taking 7.8 acres. And two, that those acres were all at the edges,
bits and pieces."
TURNKEY MITIGATION
The airport and Port of Oakland considered
a few options before deciding on a plan to mitigate for the 7.76 acres,
agreeing to replace the wetlands at a ratio of at least 1.14:1.
The Port purchased 16 acres of land in San
Lorenzo, to the south of Oakland. The land was already designated conservation
easement land, meaning that no developments could be built on the property.
It is also near the Bay and adjacent to other wetland habitats.
"We had this firm design it, build
it, and is continuing to monitor it," says McKenney. "So that
we’re not doing it with our own staff and we’re not managing
the project in terms of going out and getting somebody to design it and
then going out and getting somebody to build it. You’ve got experts
who are in that area and field dealing with it, and we pay them as a package
deal."
For $2 million the Port purchased the 16
acres and paid the design/ build firm to complete the project. The project
was funded as part of the airport development program, mainly through
passenger facility charges (PFCs).
Staba says, "We’re on the hook
to monitor and maintain it and make sure it actually serves [its] purpose
... and comes back to a natural area for five years. And at that time
we’ll start negotiating to give it back to the other groups."