In the 1940s, Waldo Giacomini and his family purchased a dairy ranch on the south end of Tomales Bay in Northern California. With the support of the Army Corps of Engineers, the family built dikes and channeled Lagunitas Creek, separated Lagunitas Creeks and its tributaries from the floodplain, blocked the intrusion of salt water from Tomales Bay, and expanded the ranch to 550 acres (Parsons, 2007). In all, 50% of the Tomales Bay wetland was diked and the Giacomini farm became one of the most productive in Marin County.
During its time as a farm, the land underwent other alterations including rip-rapping, creek path adjustment, the construction of tide gates and culverts, the diversion of Lagunitas Creek for irrigation, ditch dredging, the leveling and filling of wetlands, manure spreading, riparian vegetation removal, and the introduction of exotic plants for dairy cattle forage. Additionally, the ranches, roads, and railroad greatly increased the sedimentation to streams that emptied into the Bay. At the mouth of Lagunitas Creek, sedimentation…show more content… One of the references was the undiked marsh that is north of the Giacomini Ranch. The Walter Creek Marsh, also on Tomales Bay, was the second reference. The final reference ecosystem was Limantour Marsh which is also a part of the Point Reyes National Seashore. The references were by no means pristine ecosystems. In fact, they all have significant pathogen problems due to fecal coliform because of agriculture, leaking septic systems, and the bilge discharge of boats (Parsons, 2009). However, the references provided values for variables like water salinity, dissolved oxygen, temperature, nutrient concentrations, and pH that could be compared to the project. Although the references were also used as points of comparison for the restored project area, they were not used as the goal of the Giacomini
