Driven by a high tide, water from Tomales Bay now flows onto a pasture skirting Point Reyes Station, almost 2 miles past where a levee had once been constructed.
The water moves in long fingers, overflowing the meandering path of what Lagunitas and Tomasini creeks looked like six decades ago, before a series of levees, roads and ditches were built on the Giacomini dairy.
"A lot of that pasture vegetation will die off, and the wetlands vegetation will come back," said Mark Cederborg of Hanford Applied Restoration & Conservation, the Sonoma company that is reconstructing the marsh.
For the past 18 months, earth-moving equipment has been reshaping the 550-acre pasture, which is half of all Tomales Bay wetlands.
The dairy of the late Waldo Giacomini, established in 1946, was purchased by the state for $4 million in 2000. It is part of the Golden Gate National Recreational Area and is being managed by Point Reyes National Seashore.
At a cost of $6.2 million raised by the Point Reyes National Seashore Association, the marsh is being re-created by leveling access roads, filling in the ditches, removing miles of levees, hauling away manure spread over 13 acres, lowering high spots and restoring the original creek channels.
The 1900-era barn on a high spot of the pasture is being used as a nursery to grow boxelder, Oregon ash, snowberry, coffeeberry, red elder and red elderberry that will be planted along Lagunitas Creek.
The last part of the levee that separated the pasture from Tomales Bay was breached Oct. 5, and the returning marsh is already drawing large numbers of raptors, waterfowl and animals.
A white-tailed kite can be seen hunting for rodents, hovering over the field, and a flock of Canada geese are stirred into flight by two coyotes.
The marsh is home to such federally listed species as the California black rail, the California red-legged frog and the tidewater goby; steelhead and salmon used Lagunitas and Tomasini creeks to spawn.
"It's everything we could have hoped for," said Lorraine Parsons, wetlands ecologist at Point Reyes National Seashore. "Already we are seeing salmon moving in and rails establishing habitat, and there are a lot more waterfowl."
The marsh also will filter the water from Lagunitas Creek before it flows into Tomales Bay, improving the water quality in a bay known for its thriving oyster industry and for recreation, Parsons said.
At high tide, two-thirds of the pasture will be under water. During winter storms, the remainder may be flooded as Lagunitas Creek drains the watershed.
It may take as long as 10 years of ebb and flow, but the pasture will once again be covered with pickleweed, saltgrass, jaumea, California sea lavendar and gum plant.
"More than anything else, this is mother nature's project at this point," said John Dell'Osso, the national seashore's chief of interpretation.
You can reach Staff Writer Bob Norberg at 521-5206 or bob.norberg@pressdemocrat.com.
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