By Daniela Ades, Greenbelt Alliance
Developers have secured approval from the City of Newark to pave over hundreds of acres of open space directly adjacent to the Don Edwards SF Bay National Wildlife Refuge, trucking in over 100,000 dump trucks of fill to construct 469 luxury housing units — all atop restorable wetlands within a 100-year FEMA flood zone that is anticipated to be completely inundated by sea level rise.
With the City of Newark having approved this destructive “Sanctuary West” development project, it is now up to the state regulatory agencies whose job it is to protect San Francisco Bay to step in and stop this destruction. Urge the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission (BCDC) and San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board (Water Board) exercise their full regulatory authority to protect the “Newark Area 4” baylands before it is too late.
The former home of the Whistling Wings and Pintail Duck Clubs, the 559-acre site now known as “Newark Area 4” are historic SF Bay wetlands, long prized by Bay scientists and wildlife managers for wetland and wildlife habitat restoration — and authorized for inclusion in the Don Edwards SF Bay National Wildlife Refuge. Area 4 has also been identified as a key opportunity for nature-based adaptation for sea level rise — as a rare space for wetlands to migrate upland, providing critical habitat for endangered wildlife and flood protection for the community in the decades to come.
If the City of Newark and developers get their way, this section of the SF Bay shoreline will be just another luxury housing development atop bay fill — making efforts to restore the Bay, and advance resilience in the face of sea level rise, that much more difficult.
With the City of Newark’s approval of this development in December 2019 and legal efforts by environmentalists to challenge the environmental review so far unsuccessful, it is now up to BCDC and the SF Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board, agencies responsible for protecting the Bay, to step in and protect Area 4 before these lands are paved over forever. Join us in taking action, and spreading the word to #SaveNewarkWetlands!
