Albany Bulb

The Albany Bulb (also simply known as The Bulb) is a former landfill largely owned by the City of Albany, in California. The Bulb is the west end of a landfill peninsula jutting west from the east shore of San Francisco Bay. The term "Bulb" is often used to refer to the entire peninsula, which includes the Albany Plateau, north of Buchanan Street at its base; the high narrow "Neck," and the round "Bulb." The Bulb is part of the City of Albany, and can be reached via Buchanan Street or the Bay Trail along the east side of San Francisco Bay.

History

Like the Point Isabel peninsula to the north and the Berkeley Marina, Point Emery, and Emeryville Marina Peninsulas to the south, the Bulb peninsula is a relic of almost a century of systematic filling of the shallow Bay and its adjacent wetland. This filling was largely halted by efforts of Save The Bay from the 1960s to the 1980s. The usual fill method can be seen in the rectangular lagoon at the west end of the Bulb peninsula, a remnant left when legal action finally forced closure of the dump: Enclose part of the shallow Bay with rock and concrete rip-rap, fill the created lagoon with garbage and debris, and (usually) top off with a layer of clay. The development dream was to join the peninsulas, leaving a narrow shipping channel edged by commerce.

The tidelands off Berkeley and Albany were sold by the state in the 1870s, as railroads extended tracks northward along the waterfront from the Oakland terminus of the Transcontinental Railroad. (These tracks soon became the main transcontinental line.) Early in the 20th century, the tidelands were acquired by the rival Santa Fe Railroad.

Creation of the Bulb peninsula can be said to have begun in 1939, when the Santa Fe Railroad dynamited El Cerrito del Sur, the low hill on Fleming Point southwest of Albany Hill, to build Golden Gate Fields race track. The debris was pushed into the Bay to create parking lots. Almost immediately afterward, the City of Albany extended Buchanan Street west on Bay fill, creating a lagoon between Buchanan and the north edge of the race track. Aerial photos show the gradual filling of this lagoon at the same time that dumping extended the peninsula west into the Bay and, later, north onto the Plateau. The small salt marsh south of Buchanan, fed by Codornices and Village Creeks, grew in the last remnants of the lagoon, an echo of much larger wetlands that once flourished farther south, where the creek waters emptied into the Bay behind (east of) the dynamited hill.

The Bulb proper—the round hill at the tip of the peninsula—was created in 1963, after the City of Albany and Santa Fe, which owned the land, signed a contract for the disposal of construction debris. Thus The Bulb is made of mostly of construction debris such as concrete and rebar, as is still very visible. Lawsuits against the landfill operator brought the dumping to a halt in 1983.

The City of Albany entertained a variety of proposals for development of the peninsula, including high-rise hotels and a marina. In 2002, however, 17 years of effort by Citizens for Eastshore State Park (now Citizens for Eastshore Parks) resulted in the Plateau and lower Neck, along with shoreline to the north and south, becoming part of The Eastshore State Park. The City of Albany maintains ownership of The Bulb itself. The City of Albany continues to negotiate to have the State Parks Department (owners of the park) and/or East Bay Regional Park District (managers of the park and owners of some adjacent shoreline) take over the Bulb. Other entities are reluctant due to liability and potential costs of making the area, with its projecting concrete and rebar, "safe." Meanwhile, the Bulb area and adjacent Albany Beach have become one of the most heavily used outdoor recreation sites in the Bay.

Natural conditions and ecology

Bay currents were altered by creation of the Bulb and fill peninsulas to the north and south (Pt. Isabel was natural, but its hill was dynamited in the 1950s and marshes between it and the mainland were filled). One result has been westward extension of tidal mudflats at the mouths of Codornices, Village, and Marin Creek

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