Stege Marsh, also known as the South Richmond Marshes,Eastshore State Park map
access date 02-12-2009 is a tidal marshland wetlands area in

Richmond, California Richmond is a city in western Contra Costa County, California, United States. The city was municipal corporation, incorporated on August 7, 1905, and has a Richmond, California City Council, city council.

in western

Contra Costa County ) of the San Francisco Bay , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = United States , subdivision_type1 = State , subdivision_name1 = California , subdivision_type2 ...

.Western Stege Marsh Restoration Project Monitoring Plan
University of California, Berkeley, Richmond Field Station, Richmond, California, August, 2004, access date 12-02-2009

Overview

The marsh is the delta at the mouth of Baxter or Stege Creek, which drains from a watershed extending into the

Berkeley Hills The Berkeley Hills are a range of the Pacific Coast Ranges that overlook the northeast side of the valley that encompasses San Francisco Bay. They were previously called the "Contra Costa Range/Hills" (from the original Spanish ''Sierra de la C ...

in El Cerrito. The marsh is opposite Meeker Slough from where Meeker Slough Creek drains into

Campus Bay Campus Bay is a baylet of the Richmond Inner Harbor in Richmond, California formed by conflicting drainage on opposite ends from Meeker Slough Creek and Baxter Creek's deltas Meeker Slough and Stege Marsh Stege Marsh, also known as the South Ri ...

, which is a part of the

Richmond Inner Harbor Richmond Inner Harbor is a deepwater body of water in Richmond, California. History The harbor lies between Ferry Point and Point Isabel, between the mainland and Brooks Island in western Contra Costa County along the East Bay's northern East ...

of the

San Francisco Bay San Francisco Bay is a large tidal estuary in the U.S. state of California, and gives its name to the San Francisco Bay Area. It is dominated by the big cities of San Francisco, San Jose, and Oakland. San Francisco Bay drains water from a ...

. The site was polluted by manufacturing activities at what are now the

UC Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public university, public land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of Californi ...

Richmond Field Station and

, formerly a

Zeneca Zeneca (officially Zeneca Group PLC) was a British multinational pharmaceutical company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It was formed in June 1993 by the demerger of the pharmaceuticals and agrochemicals businesses of Imperial Che ...

sulfuric acid Sulfuric acid (American spelling and the preferred IUPAC name) or sulphuric acid ( Commonwealth spelling), known in antiquity as oil of vitriol, is a mineral acid composed of the elements sulfur, oxygen and hydrogen, with the molecular formu ...

manufacturing center. Restoration is underway. The marsh is so polluted that the San Francisco Bay Area Regional Water Quality Control Board named it a "toxic hot spot" and one of the "top 10 most polluted" sites in the

Bay Area The San Francisco Bay Area, often referred to as simply the Bay Area, is a populous region surrounding the San Francisco, San Pablo, and Suisun Bay estuaries in Northern California. The Bay Area is defined by the Association of Bay Area Gov ...

in 1998.UC Ordered to Help in Cleanup of Polluted Stege Marsh in Richmond
by Jason Malinsky, ''

The Daily Californian ''The Daily Californian'' (''Daily Cal'') is an independent, student-run newspaper that serves the University of California, Berkeley, campus and its surrounding community. It formerly published a print edition four days a week on Monday, Tuesd ...

'', 02-05-2002, access date 12-02-2009 The contamination includes dangerous levels of toxic chemicals and organic compounds such as arsenic, mercury, and

PCBs Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) are highly carcinogenic chemical compounds, formerly used in industrial and consumer products, whose production was banned in the United States by the Toxic Substances Control Act in 1979 and internationally by t ...

References

External links

RFS Remediation and Restoration Project Fact SheetPanoramic View of Stege Marsh area
Landforms of Contra Costa County, California Geography of Richmond, California San Francisco Bay Wetlands of the San Francisco Bay Area Marshes of California {{ContraCostaCountyCA-geo-stub