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Bay Area Salt Ponds to be Sold to Government

Aired May 29, 2002 - 14:46   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: Environmentalists are cheering the deal to purchase more than 16,000 acres of salt ponds in California. The deal marks the start of what may be the largest wetlands preservation project on the West Coast. CNN's Rusty Dornin explains.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RUSTY DORNIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): What is it? A question first time air travelers often have flying into San Francisco when they spot the multicolored mosaic of ponds at the tip of the bay. Since the days of the gold rush, salt has been harvested on 29,000 acres here.

Now the only producer of salt from seawater will sell half to the state and federal government. The aim: return it to marshland.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is a huge portion of the Bay shoreline. And we're talking about restoration on the scale of something like the Everglades, but we're talking about it in the middle of seven million people.

DORNIN: A $100 million deal that environmentalists say is worth every penny.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Basically, San Francisco Bay is a site of international significance. There are over a million shore birds who stop in the San Francisco Bay as they travel along the Pacific fly- way.

DORNIN: To make salt, saltwater is moved from the Bay through evaporation ponds over a 5-year period. Then, close to harvest, it's so briny it turns pink.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The color that you see is from a salt- loving bacteria that lends the brine that pink, coral cover.

DORNIN (on camera): And no other wildlife can live in here?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Right, it's too salty for any other wildlife.

DORNIN (voice-over): The salt is then scraped off the evaporated beds and piled high for refinement.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We think that we can produce almost as much salt as we're doing today on a third of what we're operating on.

DORNIN: Wildlife now thrive on the less saline ponds, where there are plenty of fish and insects.

(on camera): Many of these salt ponds have been a source of food for birds and other wildlife for more than 150 years, which is why restoration won't be done overnight. It could take 10 to 20 years.

(voice-over): Time for the birds and other wildlife to adapt.

(on camera): Are we going to see it looking much like this, probably?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Much more like this and less like the open water. The salt ponds have, as can you see, less vegetation. And the tidal marsh is really more about more vegetation, mud flats.

DORNIN (voice-over): More vegetation means a better filtering system for tidal waters from San Francisco Bay. It will also open up miles of trails, giving bird and other wildlife lovers a lot more places to flock. Rusty Dornin, CNN, Freemont, California.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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