Original "Wasteland" Filled
This recreated tidal marsh and lagoon recoup a fragment of a luxuriant 130-acre marsh system that once stretched along this shoreline. Abounding in life, the marsh offered the native Yelamu people an ideal place for fishing, hunting and gathering. The U.S. military regarded it as an unhealthy wasteland and dumped the Presidio's trash into this rich estuary before it was filled for the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition. The Army developed Crissy airfield several years later and used the site for housing and industrial operations until transferring it to the National Park Service in 1994.
"Wastelands" No Longer
Like wetlands everywhere, Bay Area tidal marshes for years were viewed as wastelands best suited for dumping, diking, draining and filling. More than 90% of the bay's 200,000 acres of perimeter wetlands were lost to urban growth by the early 1960s. As people began to recognize the ecological values of marshes, lawmakers passed laws to protect California wetlands and require replacement of wetlands damaged or destroyed by development. About 11,000 acres of wetlands around the Bay Area were restored or enhanced between 1995 and 2000; an additional 60,000 acres is the goal for the ensuing three decades.
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