The Long, Slow Spill of the Luckenbach
We don’t even have a word for an oil spill that drags out over five decades, but that’s just what happened with one ship that sank off the Golden Gate....
The Bay
What Makes a Sea Breeze Blow in the Summer?
Summer is the season for sea breezes in the Bay Area, and no one knows that better than the kite-boarders, windsurfers, and sailors who ply the Bay every chance they...
Was there ever a waterfall at the Golden Gate?
Q: Rumor has it there might have been a waterfall at the Golden Gate during the last ice age, when sea level was at its lowest. Is there any evidence...
New Plan for the “Hidden Bay”
Every day, millions of people drive over it on a half dozen bridges. Ferries and freighters cross it. Windsurfers and kayakers and boaters ply its waters. It's the picture-postcard backdrop...
Liberty Island
This flooded island has become a surprising refuge for endangered Delta smelt, which have ended up living here full time, much to the surprise of biologists. But an invading exotic...
Map: The Delta Region
This map covers the entire Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, showing protected areas, water conveyance systems, subsided areas (below sea level), and water salinity gradient.
Paradise Cut
Superhighways stay out of the Delta, mostly. But if you have ever driven on Interstate 5 south of Stockton, you have just grazed one of the southernmost Delta islands, Stewart...
Sherman Island
The Delta’s westernmost island, which shields major water-export pumps from incoming saltwater, is a testing ground for several efforts to prepare this fragile region for the threats of sea level...
Letter from the Publisher
Telling the story of the Delta, beyond farmers vs. fish.
Rafting Time for Diving Ducks
The great rafts of ducks on San Francisco and Tomales bays, mostly surf scoter, greater and lesser scaup, and canvasback, are a wintertime spectacle. Scoter flocks can range from many...
