Trust gets $1 million to restore habitat

A $1 million wetlands conservation grant from the federal government will fund wildlife habitat restoration projects at Sears Point and the new Tolay Lake Regional Park.

Sonoma Land Trust's Sears Point project, a 2,327-acre project that ranks as one of the largest tidal wetlands restoration efforts in the nation, will get $750,000 of the grant from the North American Wetlands Conservation Act. The rest goes to the Sonoma County Regional Parks Department for creek habitat restoration at the Tolay Lake park.

John Brosnan, Sonoma Land Trust's program manager, said restored wetlands are important.

"They reduce the risk of flooding highways and rail lines, improve water quality, provide critical habitat for endangered species and also offer opportunities for hiking, birdwatching and environmental education."

The federal grants come from a package of $29.6 million in government funding that pays for restoration of nearly 190,000 acres of wetlands and waterfowl habitat.

Sears Point project funding comes four years after conservationists completed a $17 million fund-raising campaign to purchase property along San Pablo Bay that once had been proposed as the site of an Indian gaming casino.

Sonoma Land Trust also announced it has received a $50,000 grant from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to build a pavilion devoted to environmental education. An interpretive center would educate visitors and hikers about the bay and marshland.

One of Sonoma Land Trust's goals is to create a four-mile extension of the San Francisco Bay Trail, enabling hikers and bikers to travel from the Petaluma River to Tolay Creek.

You can reach Staff Writer Bleys W. Rose at 521-5431 or bleys.rose@pressdemocrat.com.