SF nonprofit uses 'ecosystem engineers' to address climate change in Bayview

In an effort to address the worsening impacts of climate change and improve the cleanliness of San Francisco Bay , a nonprofit in The City has spent nearly 10 years focused on restoring the body of water’s native Olympia oyster population.

Members of the Wild Oyster Project said the species carries outsized importance in the region, filtering water from the largest state estuary while also serving a vital ecological role. Olympia oysters can also mitigate the effects of rising tides caused by climate change, according to the group.

The oysters are the only ones native to the West Coast , but the Wild Oyster Project said its population has fallen to 1% of where it was before the California Gold Rush. Linda Hunter, the founder and director of the Wild Oyster Project, described Olympia oysters as the Bay’s “ecosystem engineers.”

“When you build an oyster reef, it invites all of these other critters to come and hang out because you’ve got this thriving ecosystem that wasn’t there before,” she said.

Nearly 40% of the fresh water that flows throughout the state passes into San Francisco Bay. For years, the Wild Oyster Project has focused on improving water quality and the oyster population by designing its own reefs, using items such as biodegradable bags of shells and reef balls made by pouring concrete into fiberglass molds.

The group’s work has taken the project to Bayview-Hunters Point , where the nonprofit worked alongside the Port of San Francisco to address the effects of climate change at Heron’s Head Park.

Eric Young, the port’s director of communications, said that Heron’s Head Park sticks out in an east-west orientation. A few years ago, the port noticed “significant erosion” happening on the southern side of the park due to the number of waves washing up against the shore there in comparison with its northern side.

Young said officials started thinking about how they could “counteract the erosion and also come up with a solution that would allow us to enhance the maritime ecology right in the area.”

Casey Harper, the Wild Oyster Project’s deputy director, said in an email to The Examiner that the group emphasizes working directly with communities that have been overlooked in the push for sustainability to determine how best to serve them.

“We don’t want to waltz in with our own ideas, build an oyster reef without the community, pat ourselves on the back for a job well done and then disappear,” she said. “We don’t think restoration work like that will be successful in the long term.”

Harper said that underserved communities around the Bay Area are “already extremely resilient and resourceful” because “they’ve had to be by necessity.”

The nonprofit’s goal is to share its knowledge on oyster restoration with Bayview-Hunters Point residents so that the community can develop a strategy that works for it and its needs.

“They get it,” Hunter said of the neighborhood. “They have dirty air, dirty water and a lot of industry there. They really get that oysters are going to clean up their water.”

The Wild Oyster Project constructed an artificial reef at Heron’s Head with porous shell bags to attract and enhance marine life, as well as oyster reef balls utilizing discarded shells for their outer materials.

“We promote the idea of — whenever we can — using nature-based solutions or other solutions that can enhance native species and promote the health of the Bay,” Young said.

Hunter compared the process to that of capping, a process through which engineers get pollution out of the ground by placing a cement cap on the affected waste or soil .

“When you have a successful oyster reef, and you have oysters building their communities on top of their ancestors, nature’s doing some capping,” she said. “They suck these toxins into their body and then other oysters come. They’re basically just capping those toxins. They’re giving their lives for you and me.”

Organizers behind the oyster reef at Heron’s Head Park said that it is still too early to gather hard data regarding the reef’s effects. But shortly after the reef was built, Hunter said that the group almost immediately saw birds returning to Heron’s Head Park, which she said bodes well for the site as part of the Pacific Flyway migration route .

“In the ecosystem that the oysters have built, there’s fish and there’s crabs,” Hunter said. “There’s worms and there’s stuff for the birds to eat. If you restore oysters, then it’s going to make the birds happy.”

The oyster reef is just one of several programs the nonprofit has organized. The Wild Oyster Project also collects used oyster shells from restaurants, and chickens from the Bay Natives Nursery will peck the shells clean before they are cured in the sun. The reef balls and bagged shells are then placed in the water, where Olympia oysters will gradually become attached.

“That’s part of the value of doing something like this,” Young said. “You need to monitor it to make sure that you’re having the desired effect. And if you are having that desired effect, you want to spread the word so that these solutions, these technologies, can be adopted elsewhere.”

Harper told The Examiner that the Bay has changed dramatically from what it once looked like 200 years ago. More than 90% of its wetlands have been lost and replaced by housing and industry.

But despite the changes, Harper said the ecosystem is still vital for species that the region relies on for economic value, as well as those performing key ecological functions.

“A healthy bay ecosystem that is high in biodiversity is imperative to what makes the Bay Area what it is,” she said. “And now, with the climate crisis, the conditions that species build their lifecycle around are rapidly changing.”