BOLINAS LAGOON ECOSYSTEM RESTORATION
INVESTIGATIONS
 

PROJECT LOCATION AND DESCRIPTION

Bolinas Lagoon is a tidal embayment that is located 15 miles northwest of San Francisco on the Marin County coastline between the towns of Stinson Beach and Bolinas. The lagoon is part of the Gulf of the Farallones National Marine Sanctuary (GFNMS), which is managed by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Sedimentation in the lagoon is causing a continuous loss of important subtidal and intertidal aquatic habitat, resulting in a reduction of the diversity and abundance of aquatic life. The goal of this environmental restoration is to ameliorate the adverse human impacts to Bolinas Lagoon, thereby promoting the natural, dynamic processes of this internationally-recognized estuarine environment. Although, over the long term, sediment deposition will continue to fill the lagoon, the restoration project is intended to significantly slow the present rate of intertidal and subtidal habitat loss.

FY 18 AND FY 19 ACCOMPLISHMENTS

• Work was paused in 2011 due to sponsor requested that all work be suspended in accordance with Article X of the FCSA. No additional funding or work has been performed since.

ISSUES AND OTHER INFORMATION

• • The Marin County Open Space District is the Non-Federal Sponsor (NFS).

  • The Reconnaissance Study Phase was certified on December 24, 1997, and the NFS signed the FCSA in January 1998.

  • The Draft FS and Draft EIS/EIR were released for public review in June 2002. The Draft FS considered nine actions to restore lost habitat through increasing tidal prism and improving circulation within the lagoon at an estimated total cost of $101,000,000. Because of the estimated total cost and the nature and content of public comments, the Corps and NFS teamed with the GFNMS to develop a report titled “Recommendations for Restoration and Management” (Report).

  • Between 2007 and 2011, the NFS undertook an in-kind services effort to develop stakeholder consensus on the project purpose and need in concert with the Report.

  • In September 2011, the NFS requested that all work be suspended on the feasibility study in accordance with Article X of the FCSA. The NFS concurred in pursuing a smaller scale study of the Pine Gulch Creek Delta possibly under one of the CAP authorities.

CONGRESSIONAL INTEREST

• 2^nd District, Rep. Jared Huffman

POINT OF CONTACT

• Deputy for Project Management, Stu Townsley 415 503 6593

Updated on 26 February 2018

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