Say No To Toxic Trail At Public Hearing

The public hearing for the Cornwall Landfill Overwater Bridge, or as someone recently referred to it, "the toxic trail" will be Wednesday evening, the 17th at 6 P.M at the City Council Chambers in City Hall.

I advocate that shoreline access be provided via a land based shoreline trail, which is already planned for the future Cornwall Park, (Do we really need 3 shoreline access trails in this area... the Cornwall trail, S. Bay Trail and the overwater bridge?) We also need to set aside fish and wildlife habitat to compensate for impacts from shoreline development in this area.

In case you are wondering what the problem is with an overwater bridge, not only do they cause greater ecological damage, resulting in greater wildlife morbidity, and greater destruction of near shore habitat, but the land in and over the proposed bridge is rather special and requires enhanced protection, as discussed below.

WDFW Priority Estuarine Zone
The overwater bridge is located in and over important habitat designated by the Department of Fish and Wildlife as a priority estuarine zone. Adverse effects associated with development generally have the greatest influence on ecosystem functions in areas that have been identified as regionally significant habitat areas. The White Paper on Marine and Estuarine Shoreline Modification by Williams and Thom, 2001, recommends protection and restoration of sensitive marine nearshore and estuarine habitat and ecological functions by avoiding shoreline structural modifications altogether. Link to WDFW publication

Although the Parks Department references this designation in its JARPA application, this crucial information is overlooked in the Biological Report and the Mitigation Report. Impacts to estuaries have important consequences for fish and wildlife species.

Estuaries are the richest and most productive areas of the coastal environment. Estuarine mudflats and eelgrass provide a home for tiny invertebrates, which support shellfish, fish, waterfowl, and other wildlife. Estuarine habitat is especially important for juvenile salmon as they acclimate from freshwater to saltwater. The length of time juvenile salmon spend in the estuary varies by species. Juvenile chinook, chum, and pink salmon can spend from a few days to as long as a month in the estuary, while other species like cutthroat trout generally spend several months before they emerge and enter the open ocean. Returning adult salmon also use the estuary to reacclimate from saltwater to freshwater before returning upstream to spawn.

It is a significant oversight by the City to have failed to address impacts from an overwater bridge on a priority estuarine zone.