NBC BAY AREA – Careers in healing the Bay Area’s environment

SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE – The rumble of heavy machinery might as well have been harp music to Todd Steiner, who stood on a bluff next to Lagunitas Creek in Marin County last week and admired the channels and trenches the belching excavators were digging out of the banks.

The long-awaited restoration project to reduce flooding and improve water quality at Pescadero’s historic Butano Creek is set to begin next month.

California State Parks and the San Mateo Resource Conservation District will kick off their work on Sept. 6. The first phase of the project — which will clear trees and brush along the creek downstream of Pescadero Creek Road Bridge — will enable workers to remove sediment next summer without disturbing local wildlife.

CALIFORNIA AUDUBON – Construction wrapped up in November on our 400-acre tidal marsh enhancement project at Sonoma Creek in the San Pablo Bay National Wildlife Refuge, located in the northern part of San Francisco Bay. The new habitat is already attracting a lot of birds.

FORT BRAGG ADVOCATE NEWS – This reporter took the last joyride ever down the north end of the old Haul Road last week. A breathtaking trip it was. Construction crews had freshly unearthed nearly three miles of continuous road, making possible a spectacular oceanfront drive south from Ten Mile Bridge.

THE PRESS DEMOCRAT – 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 PRESS DEMOCRAT – Steelhead trout once returned in strong numbers to Sonoma Valley from the ocean and San Pablo Bay, swimming up Sonoma Creek to the sheltered waters of Stuart Creek, an ideal stream for spawning and rearing with its rocky bed and abundance of aquatic vegetation and insects.

RCD of SANTA CRUZ COUNTY – Our featured project from the 2013 construction season is a dam removal on Branicforte Creek. Originally constructed in 1931, the initial purpose of the dam appears to have been water supply, recreation and fire protection, though it was no longer being used for these purposes.