I only lasted forty five minutes at the meeting by the bay even
with my super squishy seat. When I
stepped outside to let my hip become itself again, there were two boys playing
by the edge of the water. Mission Bay,
once called False Bay, was created in the fifties from the dredged San Diego
River flood plain. No one thought of the
migratory birds or the other wild life that used these filtration slough
waters. They thought tourists and
recreational facilities were far more important than smelly sloughs.
Today we have a beautiful water playground that causes me
great guilt every time I see it or use it.
At the far North end of the bay is an small experimental area that’s being
returned to coastal wetland. I’m sure
everyone laughed at the college students who started this. Not me, I had a great teacher about sloughs
and protected species.
As Mike Clark, retired Biology teacher from Southwestern
College, first to work to save tidal wetlands at the Tijuana Sloughs, he taught
those around him why they were doing it.
I was one of his eager listeners as was Paul Hawkins. We cleared trash, old tires, and filled in
ditches as he called out a litany of the bugs and critters, the birds and mammals
that lived and ate in these murky waters.
Perhaps someone else heard Mike’s teachings. Near our house, volunteers work to save a
small bit of isolated Mission Bay. Seven
acres at the north end of Mission Bay have now been returned to wetlands. As birds fly in to several more saved slough
areas along our local rivers, they also now fly in to the tiny new Mission Bay
wetland area.
Life is Really in the
Footnotes:
Worked hard yesterday, and will be
going to corporate to train three days next week.
