Yesterday afternoon, over 40 ReWilders showed up with their game faces on and sat in council chambers for over 4 hours to make their voices heard for wetlands. Our ReWild Mission Bay Coach, and San Diego Audubon Society Director of Conservation, Andrew Meyer shared his comments with the Environmental Committee, wearing his ReWild blue sneakers and jersey.
Thank you: Councilmembers, everyone in the room including the sea of blue ReWilders, City staff including Scott, Kelley, Randy Wilde and Director Heidi Vonblum for the thousands of hours that the City has put into this plan. It’s a much better plan than it was just a few years ago. But it’s got to be better.
Water Quality: a quick water quality update: at the sampling location in the northeast corner of the bay, at Campland, there is currently an advisory against contacting the water, and it’s been up for the last 15 days straight. In fact, over the last several years of the Blue Water Task Force program, the Campland site is unsafe for contact recreation 42% of the time. This is not a safe place to bring swimmers and boaters, until we get more wetlands, which improve water quality.
Public Support: Through a tremendous amount of work through groups just like ours and the ReWild Coalition, you have the public support you need to prioritize wetland restoration here.
From way back in 1994, when the Mission Bay Park Master Plan committee did a phone survey of residents and found that over 95% support “preserving and enhancing natural resources in Mission Bay” and over two-thirds support “exclusively using the park for activities that are dependent on the Park’s unique water setting.”
Through the Love Your Wetlands Day which has grown year over year to over 1000 attendees just last month.
All the way up to right now, when our ReWild supporters have been at your community meetings, emailing your office, writing these postcards to prioritize wetlands for thousand reasons, and here with us right now. Our outreach to the ball players in the Park is a great example of how we are showing the way to make a park that’s ready to work for us for the next 100 years, and still be working for us the day after restoration starts.
Climate Action Plan: This public support notched a big victory in mid-2022 when the City passed its Climate Action Plan update, which committed the City to restoring at least 350 acres of tidal wetland by 2023. Because research is showing tidal wetlands are the new black gold! We need a run on tidal wetland restoration projects, to help avert the worst of the climate disasters we’ve all been hearing about. We need to train a workforce ready to restore these habitats, and get people, including Native Americans, back into these habitats reconnecting and restoring these places. These habitats are one of the most efficient habitats on earth for sequestering and storing carbon. ReWild Mission Bay is the best opportunity in the City for getting to that 350 acre goal—you need to ReWild.
Needed Improvements: The 86 members of our ReWild Coalition, representing tens of thousands of constituents, have given their 10 pieces that need to be improved, and I’d especially like to highlight the need to add a timeline to the amendment. The Climate Action Plan requires it, the people want it, and funders from outside the City will want to see that. Add a statement to the Amendment committing the City to work with community organizations and outside funders to get this area restored by 2030.
Unfortunately, we have missed the opportunity to be the first to show the world how transformative tidal wetland restoration can be. That goes to a project in Santa Barbara where a golf course was turned into over 60 acres of tidal wetland habitat. They are about 10 years ahead of us, and Dr. Lisa Stratton who’s managed that project and presented at a past ReWild event, told me just last week that they heard from neighbors during the recent rain storms how great it was to not get flooded—they have lowered the flood risk for their neighbors, gotten a letter of map revision from FEMA, and removed the need for residents to buy flood insurance all by restoring habitat and rebuilding tidal wetland habitat.
The ReWild Coalition has been a productive community partner on this project, pushing our community to deliver what we really need in our community park and we look forward to working with the City to get this project improved and underway.
Andrew Meyer
Director of Conservation for San Diego Audubon Society and Program Manager for ReWild Mission Bay.