Rising: Dispatches from the New American Shore

This chapter represents the book’s final first-person account, told through the words of Richard Santos. Richard grew up in Alviso, California. He notes, “there was one thing all of us who lived in Alviso had in common: we were poor. Though we didn’t really know it” (206). During his youth, the town, which he calls a migrant camp, was surrounded by salt ponds and orchards and lacked major highways. It was a big melting pot with generous people.

While it was once considered “the outback,” now everyone wants a piece of the town. Richard is adamant that he will not let them build high-density housing or tech campuses. A developer even offered $4 million to Richard for his property, which he refused. He describes how the Alviso advisory board approved the development of office buildings in the town, but the company can no longer afford to build it. The company sold it to another developer who wants to put in a trucking and manufacturing distribution center, but the people of Alviso do not want this new project. Because the advisory approved of a development project, however, the City of San José gave approval for the new project, going against the townspeople’s wishes. 

He believes that the wetlands restoration project will provide extra protection against flooding and help restore the wetlands to what he remembers from his youth. Richard also believes that the project will help keep Alviso out of developers’ hands. To him, the best thing about the wetlands restoration project is that it will “save the community I’ve fought so long to protect” (210).

Rising concludes with a dispatch from the Salt Pond Restoration Project, located in San Francisco Bay. This project represents the largest wetlands rehabilitation effort in the western United States. John Bourgeois, a native of Lafayette, Louisiana, and the executive project manager, tells Rush how the San Francisco estuary was “profoundly devastated and fractured” (214). Similar to many other wetlands, humans began to alter the environment to produce salt, which was a hot commodity. Laborers working for small businesses heaped dirt along the edges of the wetlands, creating salt ponds. These ponds restricted tidal flow and accelerated evaporation rates. Eventually, Leslie Salt Works bought out these small-scale outfits, controlling 44,000 acres of wetlands.

In 2003, the state of California bought these salt ponds in the hopes of trying to restore the environment. Climate change has recently complicated this project, which now involves transforming the wetlands so that they survive the changing climate. The project’s size allows John and his team to experiment with various interventions that have never been tested before in coastal wetlands. For example, they must remove the earthen embankments that separate the ponds from the bay in order to return tidal flow to the area. Prior to doing this, however, they need to build horizontal levees to restore the wetlands habitat. These levees need to be constructed prior to 2030, when sea level rise is predicted to increase significantly. John is hoping the tidal marsh will get the chance “to migrate up and in” before this climate crisis (223). As Rush notes, John is more concerned about the animal and plant species than human communities in the area because he knows humans can adapt to the changing climate.

Rush asks John, “Do you fear that you’re playing god?” (232). While John dodges the question, Rush feels uneasy about using human interventions, which destroyed the wetlands in the first place, to now try to rehabilitate them. Those working on the restoration project are trying to “conserve the stage” (239). Rather than focusing on individual species or niches, the project is trying to take into account the physical factors that form biodiversity (e.g., hydrology, soil types, and topography). By doing so, the project hopes to reconnect ecosystems across the land.