Editorial: Preservation, protection of baylands clearly a priority

For Marin, that should raise the priority for Marin City and Canal area flooding and wetlands reclamation work. Both areas have problems with flooding, but they lack the locally generated capital needed to leverage money for that work.

Also, as Rep. Jared Huffman said, as the funding package was being heard on Capitol Hill, the possible expansion and improvement of the wetlands along Highway 37 should also be a viable candidate for funding.

That’s where this one-time wave of federal funding can make a big difference, not only in providing environmental enhancement and protection, but also jobs and increased community awareness and appreciation for the ecological importance of the work.

Across our county, the latter appears to be a community strength.

Since 2017, Bay Area property owners have been paying a regional $12-per-parcel tax to help reclaim and restore the bay’s wetlands. It was sold to voters not only as an obvious environmental benefit, but as protection from flooding, as well.

Marin voters’ 73% majority vote backing the nine-county, 20-year measure was important in helping secure its victory.

Bay Area voters’ support was seen as a public mandate making preservation, protection and enhancement of the region’s baylands a top public priority.

The federal investment reflects that.

It also reflects a larger view of San Francisco Bay, reaching out to 12 counties instead of focusing solely on those nine that ring the bay.

The key is to get those projects in the federal-funding pipeline as soon as possible and not lose the money to bureaucratic delays.

The result of the funding will be a healthier and more vibrant bay and baylands, in too many cases reversing damage and problems created by human intrusion.

The bay will never return to the acreage it had before man started filling baylands for new towns and commercial complexes, but it can make a difference in saving and enhancing the acreage that exists.

The increase in federal funding makes that goal a national priority.

As Huffman said, in advancing the funding measure, “By almost any measure, in terms of ecological measures, in terms of what it means to the economy, outdoor recreations, recreational and commercial fishing, travel and tourism, there’s just nothing like San Francisco Bay.”