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 3, 1905, and has a Richmond, California, City Council, city council.

in western

Contra Costa County Contra Costa County (; ''Contra Costa'', Spanish language, Spanish for 'Opposite Coast') is a U.S. county, county located in the U.S. state of California, in the East Bay of the San Francisco Bay Area. As of the 2020 United States census, the ...

.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, and 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 Co ...

in El Cerrito. The marsh is opposite Meeker Slough from where Meeker Slough Creek drains into Campus Bay, which is a part of the Richmond Inner Harbor of the

San Francisco Bay San Francisco Bay (Chochenyo language, Chochenyo: 'ommu) is a large tidal estuary in the United States, U.S. state of California, and gives its name to the San Francisco Bay Area. It is dominated by the cities of San Francisco, California, San ...

. 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 land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after the Anglo-Irish philosopher George Berkele ...

Richmond Field Station and Campus Bay, formerly a Stauffer Chemical and most recently 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 Chemi ...

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

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, commonly known as the Bay Area, is a region of California surrounding and including San Francisco Bay, and anchored by the cities of Oakland, San Francisco, and San Jose. The Association of Bay Area Governments ...

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. History 20th century ''The Daily Californian'' became independent fro ...

'', 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.

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