A poison pill usually potassium cyanide, was given to secrete agents on both sides of the world wars for swallowing if captured. This form of exit was considered honorable rather than endure torcher to reveal their comrades. The metaphor of swallowing a poison pill can used today. Removing wetlands is a poison pill for lakes.
The fight to “reclaim” or dewater land that is too wet for agriculture or housing probably began in ancient Egypt 5,000 years ago as levees and canals were built to keep water from entering Lake Moeris thereby creating new farmland on the lake edges. This practice spread throughout the western world and followed migration to the USA where over 90% of the original wetlands are now removed for other purposes. Historically, the fight to restore or protect wetlands and its wildlife has been around almost as long. Lake County follows this pattern where over 85% of the wetlands ringing Clear Lake are gone.
The loss is realized as the value of those wetlands slowly emerge. Wetlands were reclaimed using levees built in the Middle Creek Marsh during the 1920 through 1958. This area formally known as Robinson Lake had allowed storm waters from Clover, Middle, and Scott Creeks to settle out sediment before entering Clear Lake. While the levees prevented flooding the converted lands and less than 2 dozen houses, sediment directed into Clear Lake contained most of the Phosphorus loading to the lake. This sediment is now known to come from dirt roads, surface disturbance activities and ORV parks such as on Cow Mountain. You can see the island of sediment in Clear Lake by passing over the Rodman Slough Bridge and looking toward the lake.
These levees were never very effective as the few bottom land residents were evacuated in 1983, 1986, and 1998. It was said, the wetlands tried to restore itself several times and the expense of maintaining the crumbling containments is really not worth continued effort.
After decades of scientific studies mostly by UC Davis ending in 1994, it was determined that phosphorus was the main cause of cyanobacteria blooms in the lake and Middle Creek wetlands should be restored. The value of a restored wetland to Clear Lake is now highly chronicled as benefitting aquatic and terrestrial wildlife, water quality, and historical cultural and visitor benefits for the entire county. It is amazing how this value well-known before the reclamation is now used to justify the renovation; but wasn’t used to guide the original decision. The new course is to buy out the landowners and pay the Army Corp of Engineers to design and build a new wetland; even with their record of developing the original flood control design.
The requirement to purchase land for restoration was restricted to willing sellers. Unfortunately, this was also coupled with excluding imminent domain laws designed to allow appropriate transfer of property for the public good using market price. This prerequisite was like swallowing a poison pill that created hold-outs for higher prices and delayed restructuring the bad land-management decision for 20 years and counting. In the meantime, the Phosphorus that came in during those years just sits there in the lake recycling each year like the pills’ poison and growing with each storm.
Jim Steele is a former county supervisor and a retired state ecologist.
