Barbara Boissevain
Ravenswood Restoration
These images of the Ravenswood salt ponds (bordering the Facebook campus in Menlo Park, CA), are under active restoration. The salt ponds have existed in the San Francisco Bay since the1800's and are characterized by environmentalists as having taken away the lungs of the Bay. Currently they are a part of the South Bay Salt Pond Restoration Project, the largest wetland restoration program in the United States. Over the course of the next sixty years, these salt ponds will go back to their natural state. When complete, this massive conservation project will restore over 15,000 acres to a rich mosaic of tidal wetlands and other habitats. Recent images from 2019 - 2020 show the beginning stages of the Ravenswood restoration. As the ponds start to dehydrate in the warmer weather, plant forms encrusted with layers of salt begin to appear, along with the orange colored algae that is one of the only organisms able to survive in the high salinity environment contained in these ponds. The process of restoring these ponds back to their natural state as biodiverse wetlands, includes the sculpting of channels and islands with large earthmoving equipment. This allows tidal systems back into these liminal zones, bringing tens of thousands of microorganisms. The exponentially increasing biodiversity will eventually serve as the backbone of the food chain for wildlife including mammals, fish and birds. My intention is to continue to document these changes over the coming decades.
