May 21, 2025 Sand Studies Commissioner Working Group

bgoeden: It’s like they’ve got 14.

bgoeden: Just gonna keep it. Many people.

bgoeden: Good morning. Everyone.

Pat Showalter: Hello!

Erika Guerra: Good morning!

Pat Showalter: Glad you could all make it.

Pat Showalter: Okay. Well, it’s always good to start right on time.

Pat Showalter: I’m Pat Showalter, and I’m the chair of this committee. And I want to.

Pat Showalter: just start off by thanking everyone who has contributed science to this. This is a very valuable exercise for us to hear about the science that’s happened, and and ask questions and understand it better. So I think it’s really valuable for Bcdc’s process. And I appreciate that.

Pat Showalter: So we’ll start off with. Oh, the other thing I wanted to mention is that we have. We have several. We have a couple presentations, and we’ll be taking public comment after each presentation, and and we’ll give the miners an opportunity to to talk about each study and share their perspective. So with that I think we can move on to roll, call.

Kathryn Riley, BCDC: Commissioner, Gunther.

Andrew Gunther: Here.

Kathryn Riley, BCDC: Chair. Show Walter.

Pat Showalter: Here.

Kathryn Riley, BCDC: We have 2 out of 3 commissioners present.

Pat Showalter: Okay.

Pat Showalter: All right.

bgoeden: It looks like we have 24 participants. At the moment pat.

Pat Showalter: Okay.

Pat Showalter: all right. Great. Well, thank you all for being here. And we’re going to start with benthic ecology, 101 with Jaime Lopez and

Pat Showalter: He will present this background. Information kind of as a

Pat Showalter: as a refresher for all of us, or some of us may be

Pat Showalter: won’t be as much of a refresher as others, and but to pull it all together. And, Jaime, are you available.

Jaime Lopez | BCDC: Yeah.

Jaime Lopez | BCDC: Can you guys hear me? I’m here.

Pat Showalter: We can. Yes, all right.

Jaime Lopez | BCDC: Let me get this ready to go.

Jaime Lopez | BCDC: since we’re on. Zoom, it’s a little bit different.

Jaime Lopez | BCDC: Hmm!

bgoeden: Share. Button green down in the middle.

Jaime Lopez | BCDC: Yeah, okay, is that working hopefully.

bgoeden: I give it a minute for the screen to load. There we are.

Jaime Lopez | BCDC: Okay, so what are you guys seeing right now, like the actual presentation, or like the presenter view.

bgoeden: The cut, the actual presentation.

Jaime Lopez | BCDC: Okay, so what if I do this is this, is this still a presentation.

bgoeden: Yes.

Jaime Lopez | BCDC: Okay, great awesome. Okay, yeah. Like.

Jaime Lopez | BCDC: like Commissioner showalter said, I’m Jaime Lopez, and I’m 1 of the environmental scientists here on the Bcdc team

Jaime Lopez | BCDC: working with Brenda.

Jaime Lopez | BCDC: And so since it’s been a while since we last met, and there’s probably a couple of new people that have joined

Jaime Lopez | BCDC: like the group, we thought it’d be a good idea to kind of do a brief recap on

Jaime Lopez | BCDC: on the sand mining activities that it has occurred, not also basically on like so who’s involved? How’s it done and where it’s happening and and what the second half

Jaime Lopez | BCDC: basically introducing like San Francisco, based Pic environment

Jaime Lopez | BCDC: just to set the stage for for their discussions that are gonna that day.

Jaime Lopez | BCDC: So okay, so as we’re all familiar.

Jaime Lopez | BCDC: send money occurs in 3 locations across the bay, and the 1st location is Central Bay, which is

Jaime Lopez | BCDC: leads to modern lease, to modern Marietta by the State Lands Commission. And typically, this area is this mining area

Jaime Lopez | BCDC: which are seen here in blue

Jaime Lopez | BCDC: they are up to 90 feet deep. And it’s also important to note that. So Raccoon Strait. There’s no mining happening there which is kind of northwest of Angel Island, and so much of the

Jaime Lopez | BCDC: went to the mining area

Jaime Lopez | BCDC: contains coarse green sand, while finer sand are kind of located on the southern end. Here, near residial shoal, which is adjacent to crazy fields.

Jaime Lopez | BCDC: and are primarily used, and like the sand, is primarily used for concrete and and asphalt production

Jaime Lopez | BCDC: and moving up towards Sussoon. So Sussoon Bay has 2 lease areas.

Jaime Lopez | BCDC: and the 1st is some middle ground show, which is a

Jaime Lopez | BCDC: which is near an island and has a private lease that is typically mined by Lynn moraine.

Jaime Lopez | BCDC: and with the second lease area being further east in the channel

Jaime Lopez | BCDC: that’s typically mined by Swiss and associates.

Jaime Lopez | BCDC: And this is a partnership between Lynn, Marine, and Martin Marietta, and this is also leased by the State Lands Commission. So both these locations contain finer sands, which are used for trench filling asphalt, and like other purposes.

Jaime Lopez | BCDC: Now the whole purpose of sand mining is to be able to obtain so construction aggregates, and it is not typically used for navigation. As such. The mine sand is a waste product, and therefore mining is considered

Jaime Lopez | BCDC: beneficiary use. So the mining occurs

Jaime Lopez | BCDC: year round. As there are no established work windows.

Jaime Lopez | BCDC: But the equipment that’s used for these events are typically equipped with fish greens on the

Jaime Lopez | BCDC: on the water intake pumps, and and this is to avoid entrainment of the fish.

Jaime Lopez | BCDC: Also.

Jaime Lopez | BCDC: It’s. It’s also important to note that these lease areas are typically mined

Jaime Lopez | BCDC: multiple times a year based on location, the desired grain size, and and the need of the industry. And here are some images of some of the equipment. That’s the hydraulic equipment that’s being used.

Jaime Lopez | BCDC: So you have a selection drag head, which is here, and I’m here in the center page where my cursor is pointing.

Jaime Lopez | BCDC: and on the right it’s more of like a suction pipe.

Jaime Lopez | BCDC: And here are 2 examples of mining event of mining that has occurred in Central Bay and and Middle ground shoal between 2,007 and 2,008.

Jaime Lopez | BCDC: So you would like to keep your eye on the colors, because each color represents a mining event.

Jaime Lopez | BCDC: So many repeated is repeated in these areas. So within the leads that contain the desired grain size

Jaime Lopez | BCDC: of sand. And it’s also important to note that when mining this area, when it’s constantly being repeated.

Jaime Lopez | BCDC: Mind the vendor communities in these locations are not allowed to

Jaime Lopez | BCDC: might recover, and it’s also be removed constantly.

Jaime Lopez | BCDC: Now, kind of shifting forward more towards the ecology piece

Jaime Lopez | BCDC: so now we’re looking at the subtitle sandy habitat

Jaime Lopez | BCDC: which are within these lease areas.

Jaime Lopez | BCDC: So we see that that location also influences the sand substrate and biodiversity.

Jaime Lopez | BCDC: as you can see in the image. Sand is mostly found in the deep water channels and central

Jaime Lopez | BCDC: and within the central bay

Jaime Lopez | BCDC: so deep water shoals that that are across across the estuary.

Jaime Lopez | BCDC: So if you were to focus just on Central Bay, which is a stable marine system with strong currents and tidal exchange.

Jaime Lopez | BCDC: You’ll typically see a coarser sand on the northern side of the area and much finer sands

Jaime Lopez | BCDC: towards the southern end, and as we move towards susume, which is a more brackish system, which experiences strong.

Jaime Lopez | BCDC: strong seasonal salinity changes. This is where we find medium to us, we’ll find our sense here.

Jaime Lopez | BCDC: No, it now muddy and sandy habitats also come to support Benthic or Bottom Bay, also communities.

Jaime Lopez | BCDC: And these communities live on and within the settlement.

Jaime Lopez | BCDC: So here’s an example from Chesapeake Bay and her muddy bottom habitat, which shows clams, worms, oysters.

Jaime Lopez | BCDC: and fish. So for San Francisco Bay. This could be a similar

Jaime Lopez | BCDC: configuration of organisms that that are found down there, but they also have, like other various fish species.

Jaime Lopez | BCDC: such as like never sharks, halibut.

Jaime Lopez | BCDC: some bat rays, some greased sturgeons, some sand lances.

Jaime Lopez | BCDC: and other critters like that. But that’s also, but it’s also important to know that specific species are also being dependent

Jaime Lopez | BCDC: on different environmental factors. And the location

Jaime Lopez | BCDC: also want to note that that many of these graphics throughout the presentation are going to be just illustration points.

Jaime Lopez | BCDC: and they are not journeys specific to the San Francisco Bay essentials, because we’re looking through the literature. It’s pretty scarce. So there’s not that much information about our system specifically. And this habitat

Jaime Lopez | BCDC: now, we’re gonna focus on why these communities are important.

Jaime Lopez | BCDC: So they do provide various environmental benefits

Jaime Lopez | BCDC: to the system as a whole. So this includes by having the so decomposers which are

Jaime Lopez | BCDC: typically breaking down organic material. There’s also the storing and release of carbon, nitrogen, and other nutrients within the system.

Jaime Lopez | BCDC: The water quality can also be enhanced, as there’s sediment being removed from the water column.

Jaime Lopez | BCDC: So sediments are also stabilized and oxygenated by these critters

Jaime Lopez | BCDC: that are in the bottom bed.

Jaime Lopez | BCDC: And these communities are also important because they kind of link the food web and and pretty much that’s where it starts.

Jaime Lopez | BCDC: And lastly, these communities can provide information about the health of a specific area as they are sensitive to environmental changes.

Jaime Lopez | BCDC: Here in the image is also another example of like the different types, combination of critters that could be found but it. But again, like this is not specific to our system.

Jaime Lopez | BCDC: Now, these habitats can also be used by other species for foraging, resting, some migrating, and spawning grounds.

Jaime Lopez | BCDC: but it’s also important to note that not all the ethic communities or habitats are the same.

Jaime Lopez | BCDC: For example, like what habitats which have

Jaime Lopez | BCDC: which occur in quieter areas, which which are less disturbed, tend to have more species and diversity

Jaime Lopez | BCDC: in part due to the nature of that habitat specifically as well. There are higher levels of nutrients

Jaime Lopez | BCDC: up present.

Jaime Lopez | BCDC: You compare that to sandy, deep water shoals. By their nature there are more disturbed by tides currents.

Jaime Lopez | BCDC: but they also have species that are located there that are specialized in that given area.

Jaime Lopez | BCDC: So we incorporate mining. That kind of increases the disturbance and creates an environment that’s kind of different from a naturally disturbed one.

Jaime Lopez | BCDC: And that causes the removal of these bending critters.

Jaime Lopez | BCDC: And also within these areas that are highly disturbed

Jaime Lopez | BCDC: there, there’s typically to be like low species, numbers in abundance, and there are also at a

Jaime Lopez | BCDC: at like an early stage or moderate stages of of community so development.

Jaime Lopez | BCDC: And here’s like more examples here on the right hand side. That kind of show you what a perfect community

Jaime Lopez | BCDC: that’s mostly sandy

Jaime Lopez | BCDC: at Corpus Christi, of what it might look. So you have some worms, some clams that are buried within the sediment.

Jaime Lopez | BCDC: and then you have like crabs on top of that, snails and some fish, and then the bottom one. You kind of see another representation of what it might look like

Jaime Lopez | BCDC: at a soft bottom habitat that’s again at Chesapeake Bay.

Jaime Lopez | BCDC: No, this is now looking at pre accessibility, because there are critters that are there that are important. So within the food chain.

Jaime Lopez | BCDC: So there are different organisms and life stages of a species that can vary access, varying specific depths so influencing like that food accessibility for predators.

Jaime Lopez | BCDC: so depending on the predator, like the mouth, size, and shapes, can vary also.

Jaime Lopez | BCDC: This makes this is kind of like making so different food sources important for different species.

Jaime Lopez | BCDC: And if you look at the age of the predator, that kind of also influences what prey, size.

Jaime Lopez | BCDC: and type they can access within

Jaime Lopez | BCDC: within the Beth floor. So, for example, if you focus on this picture specifically if we look at the leopard shark here

Jaime Lopez | BCDC: so we could see that the colors that those little colors around them that kind of influences like their food type. So we could see that for the leopard shark there’s higher densities within the upper layer of the sediment between, like we

Jaime Lopez | BCDC: so between like 0 to 4 cm.

Jaime Lopez | BCDC: as opposed to the lower densities that are from 4 to 10 cm, that that are much deeper in the sand.

Jaime Lopez | BCDC: So it’s also important to note that, like an adult shark or like leopard shark, would be able to access this whole depth

Jaime Lopez | BCDC: as compared to a juvenile.

Jaime Lopez | BCDC: But then, if my need happens, like you are removing this upper layer.

Jaime Lopez | BCDC: and that’s kind of removing a resource for juveniles.

Jaime Lopez | BCDC: and if that resource is removed, then that means they would have to forage somewhere else. And this is kind of why it’s important to have like a diverse benefit community that that’s important to wildlife foraging.

Jaime Lopez | BCDC: Here’s a different perspective. But this is more looking at dredging on how it may be impacting

Jaime Lopez | BCDC: like the vendor community. But this is a more of like a sketch

Jaime Lopez | BCDC: of navigational dredging. But the overall message is the same.

Jaime Lopez | BCDC: So if you were to focus just on the left hand panel, which says, Undred area.

Jaime Lopez | BCDC: and you kind of notice that there’s like an abundance of critters.

Jaime Lopez | BCDC: And throughout the sediment depth. There’s different size.

Jaime Lopez | BCDC: invertebrates, and that changes as you go deeper and deeper.

Jaime Lopez | BCDC: And then, since that’s there, like, you also have, like a diverse presence of foragers that are feeding at different levels as well.

Jaime Lopez | BCDC: And if you start shifting over to the dredged area, you notice that that upper layer of sediment has been removed.

Jaime Lopez | BCDC: So with that that comes with a decrease in price, size, and abundance. And you can also see that there’s a potential to lose those prices of

Jaime Lopez | BCDC: of forgers that are there.

Jaime Lopez | BCDC: and if we and then on the last panel, which is like between 2 to 4

Jaime Lopez | BCDC: years of post dredge, you kind of see how the banthic floor is recovering by the sediment that has accumulated, and you’re starting to see a partial recovery of the community. But then again.

Jaime Lopez | BCDC: but then, like, you’ll also see the return of some forwarders coming back slowly.

Jaime Lopez | BCDC: and they’re feeding on different prey as well. But it’s also important here to know that like this takes a lot of time, and it’s very dependent on how resilient the community is, and like their ability to

Jaime Lopez | BCDC: kind of recolonize or reestablish that area after the disturbance has occurred.

Jaime Lopez | BCDC: Yeah. So that was pretty much a very brief introduction of the world of the communities. And so coming up next, like, right after this presentation, this would be 2 studies that are

Jaime Lopez | BCDC: focus heavily on the impact of sand mining.

Jaime Lopez | BCDC: And that’s pretty much it. In the meantime, if there’s any questions like, feel free, please feel free to ask them now. And yeah, us. Thank you.

Pat Showalter: Okay, well, we have one question. This is time for questions. So if you have a question, please

Pat Showalter: raise your hand.

Pat Showalter: And I will call on you. And there is one question in the chat.

Pat Showalter: Would you like to respond to that 1 first? st Jaime.

Jaime Lopez | BCDC: And jaime.

bgoeden: If you want. If you want me to help you with that question, I can.

Jaime Lopez | BCDC: Sure bro yes.

bgoeden: So I’ll I’ll go ahead and answer it. So the question is whether or not why sand mining doesn’t have work windows.

bgoeden: So, and I think Rea is with the Army Corps of engineers, and I think the comparison is probably to navigation dredging, which is subject to work windows. So nav dredging has work, windows of June one to November 30, th and August 1st to November 30th east of the Carquinez Bridge.

bgoeden: So the sand mining projects went through individual consultations.

bgoeden: and they as part of that consultation. Early on with cowfish and wildlife, they implemented fish screens on the intake pipe. So when Jaime was showing you the equipment aria with the dredging. You saw those silver cylindrical pieces put on the water intake pipe

bgoeden: of the mining equipment. That was a primary area of entrainment for fish over 15 and so the miners were able to reduce that impact by implementing fish screens and the resource agencies determined that that was sufficient to address the main concern on entrainment from the water. Intake and mining also needs to occur occur year round to supply

bgoeden: sand to the construction industry, and they found that to be a compelling issue there is a reduction in the amount of mining that can take place in the Sassoon lease areas during the spawning season kind of the late winter to mid early spring period, where there is mining restrictions to greater than 25 feet, and

bgoeden: a volume limitation of, I believe, 54,000 cubic yards total for those 2 lease areas during that period.

Pat Showalter: Okay, thank you. Are there any more questions for Jaime?

Pat Showalter: I don’t see any raised hands. But I’m not

Pat Showalter: okay. All right. Then I understand that Commissioner Gunther would like to make a comment before the next presentation. So Commissioner Gunther.

Andrew Gunther: Thank you, Pat. I just want to advise everybody that prior to Mister Johnson speaking, I was one of the founding partners of applied marine sciences starting in 1991

Andrew Gunther: and I worked full time there until around the year 2,000, then part time for many years after that. So I was likely a I think I was a part time employee at applied marine sciences. By the time when this study was done, however, my partners knew better than to let me near any analysis

Andrew Gunther: apology. So I didn’t actually participate at all in this project, and I am now no longer associated in any way commercially with applied marine sciences. So I just thought that should be on the record. And if anyone has any questions, please reach out to me, or if for some reason, someone thinks I need to contact the Council of Bcdc. And discuss this, I will do that as well. Thanks.

Pat Showalter: Right. Are there any questions associated with this at the moment?

Pat Showalter: I see none. Okay. Well, then, we move on to the presentation. By Jay Johnson. He’s the applied marine sciences, senior oceanographer, and he’s going to present findings from the Benthic survey of commercial aggregate mining leases in Central San Francisco Bay and Western Delta.

Pat Showalter: And this was this study was conducted as part of the State Lands Commission, Environmental Impact Report on mining in San Francisco Bay.

Pat Showalter: and the Commission Working Group and members of the public will have an opportunity to discuss the study and the findings. Afterwards we have put the find, the study. Oh, I just want to mention that

Pat Showalter: the all of these studies are listed in the additional material section on the calendaring item for this meeting. So they’re readily available. If you would like to read the whole study. Okay, with that, Jay, are you ready?

Pat Showalter: Stay here.

bgoeden: He is here. He’s on mute.

jayjohnson: I’m hilarious.

jayjohnson: I might have to exit and get back in. I haven’t shared before on on Zoom, and it’s telling me when I go to share my screen, I need to exit and re-log in. So if you’ll just give me 30 seconds, I’ll do that all right.

Pat Showalter: Sure.

bgoeden: Thanks, Jay. And actually, that will give me a brief moment to say to folks who have joined us today, thank you for joining, if you would please put your name and affiliation in the chat. So we can add you to our interested parties list. Because some folks we just have a phone number. And so if you’re new to the group, we won’t

bgoeden: know who you are to be able to add you to the Commissioner Working group interested parties list. If you would like to be so, if you could do that, that would be great if you don’t want to. That’s okay, too. But that’s 1 way for us to stay connected to you all.

Pat Showalter: I would also like to take this opportunity to thank Stoll Reeves for sending us a letter yesterday. It’s signed by Christian Marsh, and basically, it sums up all of the scientific information.

Pat Showalter: It’s sort of a summary of the scientific information relative to sand mining and the benefit impact in San Francisco Bay, and I see Christian is here. I’m sure he’ll talk about it a little later. But thank you for sharing that, and it is listed in the additional materials section. So it’s available for everybody to read. It’s a it’s a 6 pager. So it takes us a little while, but it’s still very clear and easy to read. So thank you for that.

bgoeden: Alright. I’m ready to go if you’d like me to start.

bgoeden: Yay.

Pat Showalter: Perfect, go.

jayjohnson: Okay, let’s try this. Okay, share. All right. Allow. Oh, why is it telling me? Zoom workplace? Never mind. Can you see my screen.

Pat Showalter: We can indeed.

bgoeden: You are in you’re not in presenter mode yet, though Jay.

jayjohnson: Let me do that. I can do that. There we come on.

jayjohnson: there you are! Here we go.

jayjohnson: all right. So in 2,008

jayjohnson: ams. Applied marine sciences conducted a Benthic infunnel assessment of the mining leases, and the field work was done in the fall of 0 8, and then the report was published in 0 9, and became part of the initial Ceqa. Analysis for the 2,012 Eir.

jayjohnson: My name again, my name is Jay Johnson, and I’m a senior oceanographer with applied marine sciences. And I’m also a

jayjohnson: marine ecologist. So this study, as as Jaime mentioned earlier, that when we looked at

jayjohnson: what was going on, and wanted to evaluate what the potential effects of sand mining, aggregate sand mining in the bay might be on Benthic communities in general, and there isn’t a lot, especially in Central Bay, known about communities. We designed a study to look at the various mining leases and try to assess what kind of ecological conditions, habitat functionality, benthic community structure, etc, was going on in the

jayjohnson: mining leases. And so our study goals were. The primary goals were to characterize benthic communities inhabiting the mining leases. We wanted to characterize what we’re inhabiting, what kind of benthic communities. And when I say, Benthic, we’re primarily talking about infauna, the animals that live inside the surface layers of the sediment, and in some cases the Epipuna, or those larger organisms that may be on top or attached to the top

jayjohnson: of the the seafloor sediment.

jayjohnson: and we were going to look at both mining lease, composition as well as control sites or comparison sites. And then we were going to try to identify or assess the difference between communities inhabiting mining leases and control comparison sites.

jayjohnson: Let’s go. Okay. But we also had a secondary thought of obtain a better understanding of the recovery rates and timing of benthe communities inhabiting sand mining leases, following sand mining events. There has been a lot of work done in the Gulf of Mexico and along the eastern seaboard by what is now Boem used to be minerals management service, looking at aggregate mining for beach

jayjohnson: restorations and the recovery of those communities in an open ocean environment. So the study was designed around 20 samples being collected within mined leases.

jayjohnson: and of those 8 of those samples were collected along mine tracks. That means someplace where miners had come through, and Jaime showed that image of what we call worm tracks. The samples were collected or attempted to be collected within those worm tracks, and then 5 samples were collected from control and comparison sites. The delta being a smaller lease area.

jayjohnson: We collected 10 samples within the mine leases, 2 of which were in tracks and 5 were in control comparison sites.

jayjohnson: and we said the work was conducted in August of 2,008. This is an old figure, showing at that time the mining leases that were up for consideration, and most of these are still there. Some of them have changed their boundaries a little bit, but they show you how we randomly distributed, so that there were samples collected in every lease area, at least 2, if not more, in some cases 3,

jayjohnson: and then the boxes marked in white were our control comparison sites, because we knew that the sediment composition in the northern area of Central Bay was a little bit different than that along the southern

jayjohnson: portion of Central Bay, and we want to make sure we captured those for those of you who are amateur historians like me. If you look at that blue triangle up by Angel Island in Raccoon Straits. That’s where all the sediment was mined for Treasure Island

jayjohnson: back in the twenties. So just Fyi, I mean, that was one of the cocktail tidbits we picked up as we were doing this study and then back in the Delta. We already talked about middle ground shoals, which is the site in blue, and then what is called Susan Bay or the Delta sites, and going through. So

jayjohnson: what did we learn I’m going to start going, and there’s going to be a lot of slides here. I’m just going to skip over, because this was a presentation we gave some years ago. And and the data is there. So what we discovered was that Benthic community composition is highly variable.

jayjohnson: It’s very responsive to microhabitat conditions, and that physical factors, water, depth, salinity, temperature, sediment, composition and stability, organic enrichment. And Jaime mentioned that about decomposers, so in order for decomposers to be in the makeup of the Benthic community

jayjohnson: there has to be organic compounds. There’s got to be something for them to consume. And I think that’s a very important consideration.

jayjohnson: And so it’s really critical to controlling variation in the community. Composition data is understanding and controlling the ecological parameters. Sediment, composition and water depth are the 2 major physical factors that we know affect Benthic community structure. And one of my earlier slides. We talked about Microhabitat

jayjohnson: and one of the things that we’ve learned both Ams and other researchers who’ve looked at mining aggregate mining of any kind is that you have very close microhabitat composition, so you could literally move

jayjohnson: a foot away if you will, from one sample to another

jayjohnson: and pick up a dem different benthic community. Excuse my phone. I can’t.

jayjohnson: 8.

jayjohnson: Sorry about that bent. The composition

jayjohnson: can change because the sediment composition may change, or the amount of organic carbon may change. The classic example we see in the open ocean is when you get near shore, where you have sand ripples, and and in the ocean

jayjohnson: you have one benthic community on the leading edge of the sand dune if you will underwater one along the top and one on the backside, and the reason being is that on the top of this sand ripple are being predominantly affected by ocean currents. More energy, higher energy. The organisms living on the leading edge of the sand dune are being constantly moved by high energy.

jayjohnson: But then, on the backside the shadow side of the sand dune, if you will, is where all the carbon is depositing. And so we’ll have actually different communities living there.

jayjohnson: So that’s 1 of the reasons why in our study we always take our samples and we split them so that we do our chemistry on one half of the sample and the biology on the other half, so that we always know that the Benthic community that we’re describing is from the composition, the sediment, composition, and the physical factors present.

jayjohnson: And this is just a real quick slide. But we tried. This is a central bay. All of the water depths were very similar within the same water zones. You can also see that in the central bay most of the sand is coarse to medium with a little bit of fine.

jayjohnson: and then in the more in Central Bay, much the same, and then in the Delta we’re seeing, as Jaime said, much finer sand, mainly fine and medium sand, and the water depths in meters is much, much lower.

jayjohnson: I’m not going to try to make you understand this, because there won’t be a quiz.

jayjohnson: But this just shows all the animals that were collected analyzed. One of the things that we did in our study is when you do Benthic, in funnel analysis you get the mud, and then you got to separate all the animals out of the seafloor mud.

jayjohnson: and you what’s called screening, and you run them through micrometer millimeters. Yeah, millimeter screens. And the typical standard is either 1 or half millimeter. We did the split in half millimeter. And we actually analyzed the 1 separate from the half millimeter samples because the smaller animals get caught on the half millimeter screen, whereas the larger animals get caught on the 1 screen.

jayjohnson: and a lot of the species composition that we were able to use in our statistics actually came from the half millimeter smaller animals. So I think that’s important to note

jayjohnson: Central Bay. There is the presence of an epibentic community of barnacles, briozones, and hydroids that were attached to large shells in cobble

jayjohnson: covering surface sediments. In some of the locations there was a Megabentos epibentic community present in the case of sea anemone sea stars and various crustaceans. So once we got all our data, what we quickly do is some kind of statistical analysis, and this is multivariate clustering analysis. And what this told us is that when it looked at the differences in variation, what made one

jayjohnson: site different than the sample from one location different from the sample from a separate location in the species. Composition, abundances, sediment, composition of concentration of organics

jayjohnson: and central bay basically clustered into full 5 basic groups. The red, orange, green design, you know, there’s a blue one here, but it wasn’t too important, and then a navy blue, but then at each level we can then re-look to where we can describe one master community.

jayjohnson: another slide. I really don’t want to worry about too much, but what we see here, which is, I want to point out is that from 3 of our for 2 of those sets of samples little nematodes, little round, red, round worms were predominant. I mean they dominated the community.

jayjohnson: In another one you had a little more cluster, 3 evenly distributed over multiple species in Cluster 4. It was a series of sites, that neutrocola, which again is one species. And then we had another site, another set of samples that had much higher abundances, much higher species, diversity. And that’s all I want to say there, and this is why these species groups broke out

jayjohnson: cluster one was the nematodes cluster, 2 was predominantly nematodes and cluster 3 was somewhat split between polychaetes and amphipods.

jayjohnson: And what I want to point out is that most of these polychape species were not detrital feeders, but carnivores okay, worms that actively look for other animals to eat, and then in cluster 4, we had predominantly bivalves small, you know, clams, and then in cluster 5 again. Bivalves, polychaetes, and amphipods dominated the community structure.

jayjohnson: This figure quickly shows you those 5 colors and how they’re kind of distributed all over the place.

jayjohnson: We didn’t see any one set of dominant species.

jayjohnson: I want to go back to Green. So you see, Green is the one that’s a little more evenly distributed.

jayjohnson: We’ve got a little bit of everything everywhere, and that shows us that we have

jayjohnson: high high. What we suspected was a high level of microdiversity microhabitats throughout the area that are all somewhat similar in composition.

jayjohnson: What did our statistics ultimately tell us? There were no detectable differences in either. The taxa abundances, the number of organisms, the number of taxa between mining leases and the control sites. Now our control comparison. Sites are sites that have no mining activity at all, but have similar physical conditions, similar

jayjohnson: sediment, composition, because we spent a lot of time finding these sites that they were true comparison sites, and we saw no difference in tack abundances, organisms, taxa dredged and undredged sites. So when we looked at those sites, the samples that we had collected within tracks, mining tracks that had occurred within a couple years, we couldn’t see any difference. What detectable differences we did detect is that there was more medium and fine sand at the control sites than the mining leases.

jayjohnson: No, duh, because what are the miners looking for? Medium and fine sands?

jayjohnson: And cluster? 5. That last one that was, you know, very diverse multiple multiple species had higher abundances, were water, depth and medium gravel. So they were slightly deeper and they were

jayjohnson: gravel. You’ve got to be careful in geologic terms. Gravel isn’t what we think of gravel when you go to the store and buy a bag of gravel. Gravel is anything larger than

jayjohnson: large sand. Okay, when we ran the stepwise regression, which is a statistical technique that looks at.

jayjohnson: how do you continually account for increased variation until you account for all of the variation between all your samples. What we learned was that Ampelisca, which is an Arthropod Megamora, which is also an Arthropod Nemurdia, which is a roundworm nephtease, which is a polychaeaten triatella, which is again an arthropod, are positively associated with time, since dredging

jayjohnson: basically it says that we get more individuals with increasing time since dredging, whereas Armandia

jayjohnson: and that’s what’s called a pea colonizer. Armandia is

jayjohnson: in ecological terms. Those species that tend to show up the 1st time after a disturbance or some effect that is keeping other species out. They were negatively associated with times in stretching, which means you have fewer individuals with increasing times in stretching. And that’s exactly what you would expect to find in a disturbed area

jayjohnson: delta cedations. The 1st thing that you should look when you look at this table and I apologize. It’s a lot of data is, the numbers are extremely low. Abundances are very small in the Delta. When we did our clustering analysis. We basically saw 3, but essentially only 2 different community structures

jayjohnson: cluster. One is dominated by bivalves, which is the invasive Asian clam, core, corbula cluster. 2.

jayjohnson: The Polykeet was the dominant, and this is a invasive, not an invasive, but but a

jayjohnson: polykea. And then the bivalve corbicula, which is also an invasion. Asian clam. The difference between corbicula and corbula has to do with salinity and what the water salinity is, and then cluster. 3, the bivalve corbula.

jayjohnson: So this is important, because these were the 2 dominant one and 3 were the 2 dominant community structures in the Delta cluster, one cluster, 2,

jayjohnson: all right? So Corbela cluster. Yeah. Corbula is here, and corbicula is over here. So here cluster 2.

jayjohnson: And again, like we did with central Bay. These are, how they kind of spread out, and they are somewhat randomly spread out.

jayjohnson: What did we see in the Delta? We could not detect any differences in tax abundance between mining leases in the comparison sites. And once again, what we did see was that higher amounts of medium and fine sand in clusters one and 3, whereas cluster differ in number of organisms per taxa.

jayjohnson: The stepwise regression showed that media mass, just the poly key and number of taxa negatively associated with the time zone stretching. So what this is telling us is that fewer taxa

jayjohnson: and media mastis becomes more dominant with increasing time since dredging.

jayjohnson: So what does it all mean central Bay Benthic community? It’s characterized by marine species.

jayjohnson: not brackish water or estuary species. We have low species, diversity, and abundances, which is typical for sandy sediments, because there’s no organic carbon. You don’t have any of those detrital feeders. They just don’t exist. There’s nothing for them to eat. Small scale. Microhabitats do exist, and they are supporting shift in the species, dominance and community.

jayjohnson: The central Bay region, mining sites and comparison sites are subject to very high currents and unstable sediments which is reflected in the in funnel, community and composition and structure. It’s the physical conditions in Central Bay that are predominantly affecting what you’re finding

jayjohnson: there. And that was because we didn’t see any difference between the comparison sites and the mining sites. Central Bay Benthe community natural disturbance and mining disturbance act in similar ways in controlling the Bentha community development and its recovery. Unstable sediments keep communities closer to what we call an R,

jayjohnson: which is an opportunistic or invasive, a recovery type site than a K community which is equilibrium. Many of the slides that Jaime was showing are what would be considered equilibrium communities, communities that have peaked out that have developed to their maximum productivity and species diversity.

jayjohnson: our communities aren’t that way. Our communities, if any of you ever took an ecology class in high school. The classic discussion is.

jayjohnson: the farmer comes in and cuts down all the trees and creates a field, and he farms, and then he lets the field go. What happens? Well, the 1st thing that happens is the field starts to recover to pre disturbance conditions. So we see grasses. Then we see some bushes and some shrubs. We see pine trees and early invading type trees coming in, and ultimately over. Some time it’ll return to its maple oak or birch forest.

jayjohnson: The other thing that was interesting is that those sites that we saw a higher gravel, so coarser, really coarse material contents in the sediments, that it appears that the gravel itself is acting as a stabilizer, which is enabling the community development to move towards a more K equilibrium community. And if you remember that 1 5, th that 5th

jayjohnson: set of community structures and the figures we showed where you had a lot more diversity, a lot more species abundance across the taxa. That’s what we were seeing in those sites

jayjohnson: done yet. So that was this cluster 5

jayjohnson: and the same thing in the Delta

jayjohnson: changes over time. What were our Central Bay conclusions? The community appears consistent with past studies. There was a study done in 1990 by marine ecological consultants, and they reported low diversity, low abundance, nematode and polychae dominated communities and a thriving epibentic community. This is in Central Bay. The regional monitoring program, however, has done a more, as you’re all familiar with San Francisco Estuary Institute, did a huge spendthic study over multiple years looking at

jayjohnson: benta communities throughout the Bay, and this was published in 2,000,

jayjohnson: and so for San Francisco Bay. We probably have a much better idea of how diverse our Benthic communities are. And what are the physical and sediment, composition factors that control those and the sandy marine habitat community that they talk about is one of low diversity, low abundance as they’ve seen throughout the bay.

jayjohnson: and then, finally, that polychats and nematodes dominated the community in the Rmp. And red rock, and we saw that with the nematodes in Central Bay

jayjohnson: conclusions, sand mining effect on Benthic. In funnel communities it does not appear to be any different than natural conditions and affecting community composition. Recovery to Pre. Mining conditions should be quick less than one to one year, because it’s not trying to recover back to a cake type community. It’ll never get there. The physical conditions are affecting it and preventing it from reaching that

jayjohnson: that state, and then the constant release of coarse gravel and cobble from depth to surface should be beneficial to in funnel community development, and that the effect on Megabentos megabentos are those large animals like crabs.

jayjohnson: large snails is unknown because they are not typically caught in grabs.

jayjohnson: Delta Benthic communities is characterized by an estuarine species dominated by the invasive mollusks, corbicula, and corbula. What those studies with what we believe, and we would need to gather more data to confirm. But it looks like that when mining comes in it removes enough of the corbicula and corbula

jayjohnson: clams which are very effective competitors, and allowing natural recovery to native type species. And then over time, corbicula and corbula out, dominate the existing native community. Mining appears to occur in depositional areas along navigation channels that are subject to natural disturbance and movement

jayjohnson: and small-scale microhabitats exist which support different species, dominance.

jayjohnson: natural disturbance and mining act in similar ways in controlling the Benthic community development. The unstable sediments keep community closer to an r versus A. K community and the effects of the invasive clam species on benthic community composition is truly unknown, but appears to be very significant.

jayjohnson: All right, I think we’re going backwards.

jayjohnson: Yeah. Sand mining acts similar to natural disturbance and recovery should happen one to one year.

jayjohnson: All right, let me stop share all right. Any questions. I guess

jayjohnson: it’s a lot of information.

bgoeden: So the one question I have Jason’s nobody asked. Nobody else is asking a question. It’s 1 where we’re still feeling, where there’s not a lot of information, so I’d love your perspective on it. So your study looks at one year greater recovery. But when we have

bgoeden: mining that’s taking place regularly do we have any idea of like

bgoeden: whether or not the mined areas that Jaime showed, for example, would have some recovery within, you know, a month or so of a mining event. If the mining is taking place relatively steadily throughout the year.

jayjohnson: I mentioned earlier

jayjohnson: that there have been a bunch of studies that have been done on the east coast in the Gulf of Mexico, and there was even a study that we participated as the marine

jayjohnson: biologists for what was minerals management service. Now Bohm and Bessie, that looked at recovery rates and recovery and ecological destruction of benthic habitats where the States are mining sand for beach replenishment. So we’re talking, you know, huge huge volumes.

jayjohnson: and what they were what those studies have basically concluded, and some have been done in Alaska where there’s mining for gold and other minerals. Is that how the mining occurs.

jayjohnson: and when the mining occurs has the biggest effect on recovery rates.

jayjohnson: When you go in and mine a huge, you know, 4 acre area or 10 acre area. Recovery takes longer because recovery is predominantly from

jayjohnson: recolonization. We talk about these animals spawn and they get into the marine soup, and then they settle out and start to recolonize.

jayjohnson: That just takes a little bit longer. And also in that kind of mining, the way they do it. And again, the physical environment, the open ocean. The sediment composition tends to change

jayjohnson: so that you end up going from a sandy, coarser area to a depositional area which then collects more carbon, and we talked about the same, you know. If you think of a sand dune, you know that’s my classic example. You know, you’ve all been to the beach, where you have sand dunes and they move. You know you have the leading edge. You have the top and you have the backside. The backside has the carbon, the front side doesn’t, and the top is more physically disturbed

jayjohnson: because we change the carbon composition. The total organic carbon in the sediments. Then the species that are going to reinhabit that area are going to be different.

jayjohnson: Just like here, we’re seeing mainly very few detrital feeders. And we see a lot of carnivores. We see a lot of filter feeders, worms, and stuff that stick their head up in the water column and try to filter out the plankton and other stuff in the water column.

jayjohnson: The mining studies also then showed that if you do what I like to call strip mining, if you, instead of running mining all the sand out of a 4 acre area, you did strips in which you left areas undisturbed between the strips.

jayjohnson: Okay, colonization happens much quicker, because the primary means of recolonization in those events is from immigration and emigration, not

jayjohnson: colonization from the soup, if you will. Does that make sense?

jayjohnson: Because we have areas that are undisturbed. Animals grow, expand and move, they immigrate into the disturbed areas. And so recovery is much faster. And that’s why we tend to say that recovery in most communities will reach pre-disturbance abundance within a year to 2 years, depending upon the physical conditions.

jayjohnson: Now, how does that apply to what we see in Central Bay and the Delta totally different circumstances.

jayjohnson: because any carbon that’s in the water column isn’t settling out.

jayjohnson: That’s exactly what the sediment transport studies are showing and what we showed even in the areas where mining had occurred. The sediment composition isn’t much different than the sediment composition in areas that have never been mined

jayjohnson: or that have been mined many years ago. Because the recolonization isn’t.

jayjohnson: You can’t recolonize to something different.

jayjohnson: because the physical factors that are affecting those sites are so great or appear to be so great. That’s the controlling factor. It’s not the mining. It’s the 2 and 3 not currents that we see in Central Bay. It’s the 2 not currents we see in the along the channels, the main dredge channels where the ships are going in the Delta.

jayjohnson: That’s where the mining is occurring, and as far as recolonization, these worm tracks are more akin to strip mining my term strip mining where you do. Mining with strips and areas aren’t being disturbed over and over again

jayjohnson: that there’s a chance for some recovery. You could argue, and this is just my personal opinion, but I, you know, can’t prove it at this point is that probably mining in the Delta is probably a good thing, because it’s greatly disturbing the potamo corbula and corbicula composition, and at least, you know, allowing some of our native species to take hold and and stay there because you need some physical disturbance to get them out of there. But that’s not going to happen. Did that answer your question, Brenda?

bgoeden: Yeah, no, that did. Thank you, Jay. I appreciate the expanding on that. And I also I guess that just one other question. I’m not sure I can articulate it correctly, but I’m going to try. So when you say the physical factors are the determinant.

bgoeden: you’re talking about the same species coming in, instead of a different species coming in.

jayjohnson: Exactly. Well, no, it’s 2 things the same species will recover will come in because the habitat hasn’t changed.

bgoeden: Right.

jayjohnson: So you’re not going to suddenly change to a lot of detrital feeders if there’s no organic carbon, and we’re seeing no evidence of anything in the central bay being depositional at all.

jayjohnson: It’s all erosional. It’s all all heavily disturbed. The currents are moving any carbon that’s coming in any carbon that’s in the bay, working through the various basins, is staying in the water column because of the high energy.

jayjohnson: so you can. Only your species can only recolonize, based on the habitat that that they like.

jayjohnson: And if you’re not changing the habitat, if the habitat isn’t really changing. That was that statement about mining is behaving much like the currents and the physical conditions. It’s just that’s just it. And so and what we’re seeing is, it is recolonizing. And in fact, in some cases, and this was, I wish we were able to get more data.

jayjohnson: those sites that appear to have been

jayjohnson: mine that had coarse, really coarse material.

jayjohnson: We’re the most abundant and diverse

jayjohnson: communities, because they had the the gravel. Well, that’s being excluded by the miners. They don’t want it.

jayjohnson: So yeah.

Pat Showalter: You know, they’re avoiding those areas.

jayjohnson: What’s that?

Pat Showalter: They’re avoiding those areas.

jayjohnson: Well to a certain degree, but it’s also because of the way. And then one of the mine. There’s several, you know, bills here. They have screens when the sand comes up that keeps anything larger than a certain size from being collected, and it gets discharged off, and it gets returned to the seafloor.

Pat Showalter: Interesting well, as a hydrologist. I always want to know what was the water year 2,008 like I don’t remember. Was it.

jayjohnson: Was it a wet year? Was it an El Nino or an a la Nina? Is that what you’re asking.

Pat Showalter: Yeah. Was it a wet year, or was it unusual at all? Do you remember.

jayjohnson: No, not particularly I’m trying to think. The last prior to that 97, 98 winter was the was a really bad El Nino year. So we were probably 2,008, probably a, you know, mixed of, you know, not really an El Nino, but really not a la Nina, you know one of our intermediate.

Pat Showalter: Period was in. It was a long term drought, but

Pat Showalter: period. But but there were some. You know, years where things were better than others. Okay.

jayjohnson: Yeah, I can’t. I can’t speak to that because I did. We didn’t look at that. I mean, you know, it was a good fall. We had wonderful weather when we sampled so.

Pat Showalter: So that usually means it’s a dry year. Yeah.

jayjohnson: Yeah, a little bit drier. Yeah, well, we don’t. We don’t typically start seeing. Then that’s why we did this in August is we don’t typically, historically, in the Bay Area or the Central coast. See our 1st rainstorms until late October, beginning November. And and you know we have been involved with the regional monitoring program since its inception

jayjohnson: and handle all of the field collections for the regional monitoring program, and those are always always scheduled for August, September, and at the very latest early October. So you avoid rains.

jayjohnson: you know.

Pat Showalter: Yeah, okay, all right. Well, I’m not seeing. Thank you. That was a very that was an excellent presentation. I’m I’m not seeing any more hands raised for questions. But I’d like to give an opportunity for the minors to make a comment, and or anyone else who wants to make a public comment, and I’m assuming that’s going to be Christian. But whoever

Pat Showalter: is the miners would like to

Pat Showalter: represent them. I we’d be glad to hear from.

Christian Marsh: Thank you, Commissioner Showalter. I really appreciate that. I think we’ll we’ll hold off. We’d rather really focus on the presentations and make sure you can get through those first.st

Pat Showalter: Okay. Alright, that’s that’s fine. Are there any more public comments associated with this other than questions?

Pat Showalter: Again, I’m not seeing any raised hands. Does anybody else see any raised hands?

Pat Showalter: Okay.

bgoeden: I don’t either, Pat. I just dropped in the chat that, according to the water group, california was in an extreme drought in 2,007, through 2,009, according to the Natural Resources Agency and the California Department of Water.

Pat Showalter: Thank you.

bgoeden: Love, Google.

Pat Showalter: It’s wonderful, isn’t it? All right? Well, let’s move on to our next presentation.

Pat Showalter: I think that’s Tim. Hammermeister.

Tim Hammermeister: Yes, that’s correct, and thank you so much for being here and

Pat Showalter: Do you? Are you ready to.

Tim Hammermeister: Sure. Let me go to share screen.

Tim Hammermeister: and let me know if you’re seeing my presentation.

Pat Showalter: Are okay. And it’s full screen.

Tim Hammermeister: Excellent.

Tim Hammermeister: Yes, I am Tim Hammermeister. I’m with Erm Newfields. We were just recently acquired by Erm.

Tim Hammermeister: New. We did this study under new fields.

Tim Hammermeister: And this is the Benthic assessment of sand mining in Central and Sassoon bays that we conducted

Tim Hammermeister: the data collection was 2016, 2017,

Tim Hammermeister: and then follow up reporting 2018 and 2020.

Tim Hammermeister: I’m like cover screen. Here. I’ve included a picture of a

Tim Hammermeister: a tool that we used in our study, a sentiment profile imaging camera

Tim Hammermeister: that Jay actually provided an excellent segue. We were looking at the habitat types as a big part of our study. And with this camera, you’re able to get a

Tim Hammermeister: picture of the sediment water interface to evaluate the type of habitat you’re looking at, both in

Tim Hammermeister: the various features of the grain, size and

Tim Hammermeister: presence, absence of organisms and other visual indications.

Tim Hammermeister: And as I just wanted to present the picture because it’ll be part of the study that we came up.

Tim Hammermeister: So let’s move on here.

Tim Hammermeister: So the history of our study was.

Tim Hammermeister: we had an approved sampling analysis plan back in 2016

Tim Hammermeister: that was developed through the Btac.

Tim Hammermeister: We we did our initial sampling in 2016 and follow up sampling in 2017, both in October.

Tim Hammermeister: as I said, we initial reported our results in 2018

Tim Hammermeister: apparently. It satisfied the permit conditions. But then there was a request for some supplemental work that we did in 2020,

Tim Hammermeister: and just to get start with the original study design.

Tim Hammermeister: Our objectives were to characterize the benthic habitat conditions.

Tim Hammermeister: compare the characteristics of the benta habitat before and after sand mining occurred.

Tim Hammermeister: and assess the potential impacts from the sand mining

Tim Hammermeister: and how the habitat would function 12 months following the sand mining. So we were looking at.

Tim Hammermeister: Is a year an adequate recovery period, and

Tim Hammermeister: you know initially, the idea was seasonally assessing the habitat conditions. But

Tim Hammermeister: it’s quite cost prohibitive. These studies are quite expensive, especially bent to community analysis.

Tim Hammermeister: So we did one year to cover a full set of seasons and

Tim Hammermeister: see what the how the recovery rate was at that point.

Tim Hammermeister: Oh, so our study design included

Tim Hammermeister: study sites in 2 different lease areas, the treatment areas

Tim Hammermeister: and immediately adjacent to those lease areas were our reference areas and were controlled.

Tim Hammermeister: And we we picked reference areas that were right next to the lease areas to

Tim Hammermeister: that. But there had never been

Tim Hammermeister: sand line before, nor were they

Tim Hammermeister: in one of the lease areas. But just to get the similar of habitat types as possible, and hopefully.

Tim Hammermeister: guild.

Tim Hammermeister: Basically the same macro conditions over the year would affect both the

Tim Hammermeister: treatment and reference areas. So the data types we collected were the setup profile images from the camera. I showed on the 1st slide

Tim Hammermeister: our sediment, conventional parameters, Toc grain size.

Tim Hammermeister: And we did Bentha community analysis. We had Mts marine taxonomic services did the Bentha community analysis for us?

Tim Hammermeister: As I said earlier today, we had 2 sampling events. Our T. 0 was

Tim Hammermeister: immediately prior to sand mining, and then A. T. 1212 months after the sand mining was completed.

Tim Hammermeister: our study design, known as A before after control impact.

Tim Hammermeister: This graphic presents kind of a

Tim Hammermeister: well. It’s a graphic of how the study design. It says we have a treatment reference area so that we’re looking at

Tim Hammermeister: what the conditions are in both mining and non-mined area arm.

Tim Hammermeister: The B parameter is, do we see changes in the treatment area 12 months.

Tim Hammermeister: Post mining the C parameter there between reference areas is, what are the natural changes over 12 months?

Tim Hammermeister: That would have occurred in these areas. So that’s that’s the real control factor.

Tim Hammermeister: And then the the D parameter is

Tim Hammermeister: okay. Were the changes different in the treatment area than the changes we saw in the reference area that were natural changes.

Tim Hammermeister: So it’s trying to tease out.

Tim Hammermeister: Are any changes seen at 12 months due to mining? Or are they just due to the natural changes that would occur over time.

Tim Hammermeister: because, as Jay discussed in his, these are very high energy areas, relatively speaking, in the bay. So

Tim Hammermeister: they’re always they’re basically in a state of constant change relative to an acquiescent bay.

Tim Hammermeister: whether it’s a physical, man-made physical disturbance or just natural disturbance.

Tim Hammermeister: So let me see. Okay, so here’s a map of our study area in Sassoon Bay

Tim Hammermeister: we basically collected 60 images using the sediment profile at 60 locations.

Tim Hammermeister: 90 images, or 3 images per location. So 120 images across the reference and treatment areas.

Tim Hammermeister: Then we did a subset of.

Tim Hammermeister: I want to say, I think it was 20 locations for Benthack community analysis.

Tim Hammermeister: Just we use the camera to get greater coverage

Tim Hammermeister: and the obviously the community to get the specific data.

Tim Hammermeister: Now in this map, you can see these

Tim Hammermeister: little squiggly lines are where the sand mining occurred

Tim Hammermeister: in the treatment area. Now, our design was to have a grid of samples just for spatial coverage and to be non-biased on where sampling we really wanted to just characterize the whole area

Tim Hammermeister: and the habitat type. But it’s key. It is key to note that in Sassoon Bay

Tim Hammermeister: the dredgers tend to anchor and

Tim Hammermeister: dredge in one spot. So the dredge trails here

Tim Hammermeister: are much smaller portion of the lease area

Tim Hammermeister: than what we’ll see in Central Base, and unfortunately, during this study

Tim Hammermeister: there was some more dredging completed, but the GPS system on the

Tim Hammermeister: mining vessel was out, so we did not get data for the other tracks, but I was assured there would be similar to the ones you’re seeing here.

Tim Hammermeister: Same study design in Central Bay reference area

Tim Hammermeister: adjacent to the treatment area that wasn’t dredged

Tim Hammermeister: and a treatment area that was dredged. And you can see this is what I was talking about, and the difference of how they mine. Here they tended to drift with the current.

Tim Hammermeister: and therefore creating much longer tracks, dredging tracks through the lease area.

Tim Hammermeister: So the result results of our Bentha community analysis was in Port Knox Shoal Central Basin.

Tim Hammermeister: There was a loss of complexity.

Tim Hammermeister: but that loss of complexity was observed in both the treatment and reference areas.

Tim Hammermeister: So

Tim Hammermeister: it’s in that case it’s not clear whether any observed changings are from change are from the mining or just natural changes from year to year

Tim Hammermeister: into 2 May.

Tim Hammermeister: There’s a change in the overall community

Tim Hammermeister: with both the quantity and representation of the beta community.

Tim Hammermeister: The general metrics that you look at didn’t really weren’t really changed.

Tim Hammermeister: And the changes in the tax distribution again, we’re

Tim Hammermeister: were not significant enough in one area versus the other to attributed specifically to sand mining.

Tim Hammermeister: The results actually showed up in the

Tim Hammermeister: in the soon area that the

Tim Hammermeister: community is slightly more complex at T. 12.

Tim Hammermeister: That very well could I to dig deep enough in the data to to to her

Tim Hammermeister: trigger my memory. But I have the I seem to recall. It’s because we got rid of a lot of these clams

Tim Hammermeister: in the trudge area, and therefore the complexity because it was not dominated by a single species. The complexity, therefore increased because, one species was

Tim Hammermeister: less abundant.

Tim Hammermeister: Now, the habitat conditions this is more from the camera results very similar because

Tim Hammermeister: you have the same high energy areas. What we find with the camera imaging and the data in the reports

Tim Hammermeister: is that the vast majority of both these treatment and

Tim Hammermeister: study areas as due to the high Rga, we can

Tim Hammermeister: in the image analysis, we consider it a stage one community. That means it’s a colonizing community.

Tim Hammermeister: I mean, I could repeat a lot of stuff that Jay said. It’s high energy. It’s the type of community that exists in this type of substrate, and it’s in a it’s used to constant physical change, whether natural

Tim Hammermeister: or man-made. The physical change is not.

Tim Hammermeister: It’s kind of a it’s. It’s used the colony. That habitats there is used to that because of the higher energy in the system.

Tim Hammermeister: Are are from the camera. There didn’t seem to be any major changes in the habitat

Tim Hammermeister: after 12 months, because it was the stage one at time 0. It was stage one at T. 12.

Tim Hammermeister: High energy, sandy, substrate.

Tim Hammermeister: Based on kind of backtrack, a little bit

Tim Hammermeister: based on our study design since we did do a grid. And this is these are sizable areas and the sand mining was done over. I think a 1 or 2 week period.

Tim Hammermeister: and in Sassoon it looks like, you know, our stations.

Tim Hammermeister: Sand mining was such a small portion of the area. Our stations were somewhere further afield from the obvious sand mining.

Tim Hammermeister: Little little more crossover in Central basin.

Tim Hammermeister: So the question was raised. Well, maybe we should evaluate a subset of these stations to see if if you really looked at these stations that were much closer to where the sand mining occurred

Tim Hammermeister: in this area and through the central part of the test area of the treatment area.

Tim Hammermeister: would there be any impacts? And our supplemental study

Tim Hammermeister: with the reduced data points, even though the statistical power is lower. We really got the same results as we did when we looked at the same

Tim Hammermeister: as full data set some slight changes, but the changes occurred in both the reference and treatment area.

Tim Hammermeister: You couldn’t discern whether the presumably that means the changes are natural. So therefore, we could not

Tim Hammermeister: assign any observed changes to the effects of sand mining. Basically, we found the same habitat

Tim Hammermeister: one year later that we found when we did the baseline studies.

Tim Hammermeister: And my understanding is this, supplemental study was

Tim Hammermeister: also accepted under the permit conditions for the mining companies, and

Tim Hammermeister: we haven’t done any subsequent data analysis or data collection. So this is where our findings were

Tim Hammermeister: from 2020.

Tim Hammermeister: That’s all I have for you today.

Tim Hammermeister: I don’t know if I’m still sharing or.

Pat Showalter: Thank you. I have a question, and and I thought I was listening. You might have gone over this. But can you talk a little bit more about

Pat Showalter: how the image you know. What exactly are you taking a picture of when you put that camera down there.

Tim Hammermeister: It basically takes a 20 cm profile picture of the sediment water interface. It’s used depending on the depth of penetration and in sand. You don’t penetrate as far because the density of the substrate.

Tim Hammermeister: But you basically see the upper portion of the sediment

Tim Hammermeister: where the Benthic organisms live. You know, typically the biological, active zone is about 10 cm in a

Tim Hammermeister: inland bay.

Tim Hammermeister: And then you see the overlying water. So you can basically see grain size.

Tim Hammermeister: There’s any type of material on the surface, whether it’s natural or any type of detritus.

Tim Hammermeister: We use this tool a lot for wood, waste and stuff, so you can delineate things that exist on the surface, it’ll show you the oxygenated layer and the redox zone.

Tim Hammermeister: So typically in sandy environments, it’s much more oxidized because the porosity of the sand and the water allows it to

Tim Hammermeister: it doesn’t go anoxic, whereas in a on it

Tim Hammermeister: a shallow embayment with a lot of silk, clay and organic material.

Pat Showalter: Oh!

Tim Hammermeister: Oh, thank you very much. Yeah.

bgoeden: I just popped open the study into the appendices that show the the spy camera. I thought it would be very illustrative, as you try to explain it to us verbally.

Tim Hammermeister: Yeah, then, yeah, this is a.

Tim Hammermeister: This is exactly what I’m talking about. So the dark part on this left image is the overlying water.

Tim Hammermeister: and you can see

Tim Hammermeister: we got partial penetration because of sand. In both of these images, you know, soft, silty clay substrates. Sometimes it penetrates all the way to the

Tim Hammermeister: the top of the image.

Tim Hammermeister: And, as you can see, because this is all the light tan color.

Tim Hammermeister: Think this is more shadow in the one on the left than actually anoxic.

Tim Hammermeister: It’s well aerated again. That’s a reflection of the porosity of the sand and the

Tim Hammermeister: the water exchange. Yeah, there’s some good ones.

Tim Hammermeister: There’s an example, some of the gravel that Jay was talking about on the surface.

Tim Hammermeister: and you know you can spot various images, and again the lower the penetration, the denser, the substrate.

bgoeden: Yeah, that was actually one of my questions, because I was reviewing the studies again. And you had said in the document that the bottom was hard.

bgoeden: hard sand bottom, I think, is what you called it.

bgoeden: And I just was reflecting on that and trying to understand. Does it mean like it’s a consolidated sand that has to be sort of

bgoeden: pushed apart by water jetting, or is it loose enough that

bgoeden: the material can be pulled into the equipment. It just the terminology struck me as really interesting. That just raised a question for me. I was like, maybe I don’t really know.

Tim Hammermeister: It is, it is relative. Generally.

Tim Hammermeister: when we see Sandy substrates they are consolidated just because they’ve been laid down by

Tim Hammermeister: the way they’re formed. It’s

Tim Hammermeister: there’s not water circulating from the bottom that would keep it unconsolidated. In general, it’s it’s just the Water Exchange over the top, and the way the sands, and I’m not a

Tim Hammermeister: transport guy, but maybe someone on the call. Would you know the way the sand is laid down? It’s much more Consolidated than

Tim Hammermeister: you know what you’d see on a dry, sandy beach.

bgoeden: Yeah, and I also.

Tim Hammermeister: When you get into muddy areas, when you see really unconsolidated stuff where it’s really soft gooey mayonnaise like

Tim Hammermeister: consistency.

bgoeden: Yeah. So I also just dropped in the chat trying to presuppose one of Pat’s questions. So I did also look up the water year. During this study I think I have it matched up. But according to Dwr. This was a very dramatically wet year.

bgoeden: It says, the second place for State water runoff was after 1983. So apparently October 1, 2016, to September 30, th 2017, was very wet. So pat. If you had that question. I looked it up for you.

bgoeden: and then Bob is asking whether or not the bed photographs are available. And yes, they are, Bob. They’re in the Benthic study by Newfields, the full report, and they are around page 40,

bgoeden: 4 of 117 in the Pdf. So it is available for you to think about.

bgoeden: Look at all in that link that I added to the chat earlier in the meeting.

Pat Showalter: Thank you. Okay. Well, I also see that Commissioner Gunther has a question.

Pat Showalter: You’re muted.

Andrew Gunther: Thank you, Pat. The message, the message that you have

Andrew Gunther: is, does this have as its beginnings the remarks.

Andrew Gunther: camera work in the 19 nineties that Noah was doing. Are you familiar with that.

Tim Hammermeister: Yeah, it’s the same system. It’s just we. We refer to it as a sediment profile, imaging camera instead of a

Tim Hammermeister: 3 months.

Andrew Gunther: Yeah, you’ve got. You’ve definitely improved the name.

Andrew Gunther: Make sure I was associated with the same thing. Thanks.

Tim Hammermeister: Yeah, it all. It all came from the same. We worked with Joe Germano prior to all.

Andrew Gunther: Yeah, okay.

Tim Hammermeister: It’s a small community.

Pat Showalter: All right.

Pat Showalter: I don’t see any more hands raised for questions.

Pat Showalter: So so now.

bgoeden: Can I ask one more question because it.

Pat Showalter: Of course.

bgoeden: This has puzzled me, and I think Tim’s familiar with my question about this, because it puzzled me last time. So with a Bakke study before after treatment comparison impact. However, that term goes

bgoeden: and you did the grid and the mining was either on the sample points or not.

bgoeden: What I’m wondering is just trying to think about like the study and how its results are reported, if

bgoeden: and this is where I struggled with it before. So we had this conversation before. But I still sort of have this question, which is, if you’re doing a Bakke study, and you have before after treatment before and then control?

bgoeden: If the treatment doesn’t happen on the sample point, does that

bgoeden: truly reflect, reflect the results? Or is it because the stamp, the

bgoeden: the treatment was sparse, and it was like one episode of mining that’s considered a successful treatment. That’s what I like really struggled last time. And maybe you could just speak to that to help me with that struggle that I still feel like I have over the before after

bgoeden: type project

Tim Hammermeister: Sure the key thing here is a habitat is not a point, but an area.

Tim Hammermeister: So what we’re really looking at is the benthic habitat within the lease area and an area adjacent to it

Tim Hammermeister: to see if you know there are observable impacts.

Tim Hammermeister: Now, again, you know, it’s it could be a measure of degree if

Tim Hammermeister: they mined every day for the the entire year between the study and got every

Tim Hammermeister: piece of sand out of the tree lease area. Certainly you’d see different results.

Tim Hammermeister: But just by the nature of how they’re mining through these lease areas, the the habitat area doesn’t change.

Tim Hammermeister: So I mean, originally the objectives were like was there impacts up to the foraging fish and stuff

Tim Hammermeister: by seeing how they are dredging through these areas kind of like what

Tim Hammermeister: Jay referred to. I think it’s strip mining. Since you have areas untouched and areas touched within the

Tim Hammermeister: within the overall habitat, it recovers faster. And there’s still it doesn’t.

Tim Hammermeister: It doesn’t period of effect.

Tim Hammermeister: The habitat as a whole.

Tim Hammermeister: It the habitat is.

Tim Hammermeister: and especially in these high energy areas, is what the habitat is. So you’re going to see

Tim Hammermeister: basically the same type of organisms coming back to colonize it.

Tim Hammermeister: And by its very nature it’s a colonizing habitat.

Tim Hammermeister: I know that sounds circular. But

bgoeden: No, it’s.

Tim Hammermeister: So a physical disturbance, whether natural or

Tim Hammermeister: man-made disturbance in this type of environment, it’s really hard to see a a change.

Tim Hammermeister: It would have to be a matter of degree.

Tim Hammermeister: And then, you know, I think we had a discussion before whether 12 months was

Tim Hammermeister: a long time or not, but or too much time to see an impact.

Tim Hammermeister: Well, that’s a kind of a different question of

Tim Hammermeister: exactly how quick it takes to recollonize it.

bgoeden: Okay, thank you, Tim. I appreciate that little bit of expansion that’s helpful.

Pat Showalter: Okay, it looks like Bob Battagio has a question as well. Are the grain size categories defined in the reports.

Pat Showalter: and Tim is on mood, but he’s shaking his head. Yes.

Tim Hammermeister: Yes, yeah, we did a visual evaluation of the major grain size modes in the images. And then we had physical grain size samples collected along with the benta community. So the physical ones are a subset. And then the visual assessment on the digital images

Tim Hammermeister: is all 60 locations, presidiary.

Bob Battalio: Yeah, just to clarify. I was wondering if you had tabulated the actual

Bob Battalio: grain size ranges in millimeters or other dimensions like, you know, coarse sand. What is between certain

Bob Battalio: particular grain size? Yeah, yeah.

Tim Hammermeister: Yeah, we we have 4 game sites.

Tim Hammermeister: The full grain side distribution is in with the benthics, community samples and the visual ones are much more of a dominated by this grain size, type, assessment.

Bob Battalio: Okay, but you define what a course sand, grain, sizes and millimeters

Bob Battalio: in your yeah. Okay, thank you. Thank you.

Pat Showalter: Excellent. Okay? So I think that does bring us to the end of the questions. So now we come to public comment on this, and I’m wondering if anyone has some comments they would like to make

Pat Showalter: And also, if if the miners would like to talk now that they would be welcome.

Pat Showalter: and they may come.

Pat Showalter: Go ahead.

Christian Marsh: Commissioner showalter, and and others. Thank you, Christian Marsh. Again.

Christian Marsh: I’m with the law firm as Stoll Reeves. I’m I’m not a bethic ecologist, although I do

Christian Marsh: have a specialty in endangered species, critical habitats, sequa and Nepa.

Christian Marsh: I also began my career at interior in the office of water and science. So the science is incredibly important, and I think the process is also important, and I really want to commend

Christian Marsh: on behalf of the the Sand Miners. I want to commend Bcdc. For this working group process has been very helpful.

Christian Marsh: I wanted to just really briefly, back up a little bit and and provide some context on the process as well.

Christian Marsh: And also sand mining. So first, st as Commissioner Showalter mentioned.

Christian Marsh: we had provided yesterday a summary of of studies and evaluations that have been conducted, of the effects of sand mining on bent, thick habitats over the last 20 years. It’s really just a summary. I think the

Christian Marsh: the original studies are all available.

Christian Marsh: And those build on the earlier studies that Jay Johnson had mentioned in his presentation.

Christian Marsh: I also want to mention that

Christian Marsh: Bcdc. And again, we commend Bcdc. For holding a two-day science panel. This is about 10 years ago that focused one day on Bethic habitats, and the other day on coastal

Christian Marsh: or us sand transport and supply.

Christian Marsh: That was also helpful as well as

Christian Marsh: conditioning as part of the permits, and this is a condition from the Regional Board and Nymphs as well

Christian Marsh: to form the Benthic Technical Advisory Committee.

Christian Marsh: That Benthic tack was a bit like the Santac, although administered differently

Christian Marsh: but it was also comprised of all of the regulatory agencies, and a representative from Usgs as well as the Sand Miners, and that Beth attack is is

Christian Marsh: who guided the new field study that you heard presented today from Tim Hamelmeister.

Christian Marsh: obviously, as you’re kind of hearing today. There’s a substantial amount of work, and I think a lot more knowledge and understanding and certainty about the benthic habitats and the effects from sand mining than we might have from coastal geomorphology and and sand transport.

Christian Marsh: But I would also note just for context, that sand mining sand. Mining events in a given year are only comprised about one to 2% of the bay floor

Christian Marsh: in each year. So while the sand mining effect might be significant in the specific discrete area. Mind, it is quite marginal as you start looking at the the bay as a whole, which is where

Christian Marsh: I think the the Ams and new field studies

Christian Marsh: come into play and then, really just other than that I wanted to to introduce Dr. Chuck Hansen. He is a an expert ecologist.

Christian Marsh: He was engaged by Mark Marietta and Lind to do the original studies and and the biological assessments for

Christian Marsh: the last round of of permitting and leases, and also this round of permitting and leases.

Christian Marsh: And he might just have a couple of comments on on the study presentations today as well as as his own evaluation of the Benthic community over the years. So

Christian Marsh: if I could just pass it to him, I think that’s all we have. We’re certainly here and available for comments or questions.

Christian Marsh: and and again, really appreciate the commission, and

Christian Marsh: and Brendan in particular for for steering the the working group process. This has been very, very helpful and informative.

Christian Marsh: so with that I would pitch to to chuck if he has just any, any comments whatsoever.

Pat Showalter: That’s great. And before Chuck starts talking I need to.

Pat Showalter: make a comment about a conflict of interest. I don’t think there really is a contract of interest. But I just want to let everybody know that I hired Chuck Hansen for several years while I was the project manager on the face investigation for Santa Clara Valley Water district. So we have a or we had a very close professional relationship. I, however, have not talked to him at all about this benthic investigation

Pat Showalter: and

Pat Showalter: So I’ve not been at all that. But I just wanted to let everybody know. I don’t.

Pat Showalter: Greg, if you think there’s any recusal requirement at this point, please let me know.

Pat Showalter: No, alright, thank you, Chuck. It’s great to see you.

Chuck: Hey, Pat, very nice to see you again, and

Chuck: I am still working on face for Santa Clara Valley.

Chuck: So your legacy carries forward.

Pat Showalter: Thank you.

Chuck: But in terms of the Benthic disturbance issues. With regard to sand mining, I want to applaud the 2 presentations by Ams and Newfields.

Chuck: They bring new science to the forefront on benthic ecology and disturbance.

Chuck: and I’d like to turn the clock back 25 years to the point where we didn’t have that information.

Chuck: and this starts in about 20,000.

Chuck: When the Sand mining community was starting to prepare for lease renewals by the Coastal or by the State Lands Commission.

Chuck: and we recognized through that process that the information we had available was really sparse.

Chuck: It was fragmented, it was incomplete.

Chuck: And we really at that point I don’t think understood what sand mining was all about.

Chuck: and so the Sand Miners decided to

Chuck: enter into a collaborative effort with the State and Federal agencies.

Chuck: It was a 3 year program of data, collection, analysis, interpretation, and discussion.

Chuck: We met about quarterly for that 3 year period.

Chuck: and then in 2024, we prepared a draft report.

Chuck: and the report was really intended to be a compilation of information on sand mining

Chuck: specific to Central Bay and Sassoon Bay.

Chuck: It was intended to provide to the agencies and all the parties a foundation of information.

Chuck: and the information that we tried to provide was reviewed by the agencies. It was also reviewed by an independent panel of scientific experts from around the world.

Chuck: and in that report we describe the methods for sand mining.

Chuck: We described the equipment.

Chuck: We had the miners for a year monitor in detail their locations where these worm trails are occurring.

Chuck: We looked at the frequency and the duration of each individual mining event.

Chuck: and through that process of better understanding the mining methods.

Chuck: we, as the other speakers, have said, we identified that mining was really focused on

Chuck: sandy high velocity, high disturbance areas within the bay.

Chuck: These are areas that are characterized by sand waves that epitomize the frequent and an ongoing disturbance

Chuck: through natural velocities and tidal action and other processes that occur within these areas where mining occurs.

Chuck: and by looking at those areas where mining occurs in the areas where it doesn’t. We found that mining really doesn’t occur in areas with fine colloidal sediments.

Chuck: And the reason for that is that that’s not the product that the miners want to actually sell.

Chuck: They’re looking for clean sand with very low percent of fines. And those are characterized by areas that are erosional

Chuck: that are frequently disturbed, and the community that inhabits those areas, as the 2 prior speakers say.

Chuck: are really characterized by a benthic community that has evolved and adapted to this kind of naturally occurring disturbance.

Chuck: They have high fecundity, typically

Chuck: they have dispersal early life stages, and they have the ability to fairly rapidly recolonize disturbed habitats, and

Chuck: we then looked at studies that were conducted, and, as both Ams and and new fields point out, there weren’t very many studies that were done specific to San Francisco Bay or the Delta.

Chuck: And so we needed to look basically worldwide

Chuck: to get whatever information we could from various research investigations and studies, of dredging, of other mining activity.

Chuck: of the use of suction dredges for harvesting Benthic clams, you know, whatever we could find, we tried to pull together to really provide a a background

Chuck: of scientific information on the impacts of these kinds of mining activities.

Chuck: On the Benthe community.

Chuck: we tried to focus on similar areas, having characteristics of the sand mining events in San Francisco Bay.

Chuck: and what we found was that in those studies they were all characterized by rapid recolonization.

Chuck: and that recolonization of disturbed areas could occur within a day or a year.

Chuck: We then, you know.

Chuck: drew from that body of information of both the techniques and the methods of mining as well as the synthesis of information from other areas. Some conclusions that we thought were appropriate for sand mining within the Bay Delta system

Chuck: and one of our conclusions. This is obviously sand mining results in a temporary localized effect of penthic disturbance.

Chuck: We speculated that that would temporarily affect the benthic community characteristics, but that the Benthic communities would rapidly recolonize those areas following a mining event.

Chuck: And we hypothesized from that body of information that there was really no long-term benthic impacts

Chuck: that were likely to occur.

Chuck: But we didn’t have site specific studies to really evaluate

Chuck: those hypotheses or those preliminary conclusions.

Chuck: And that’s what led to. I think the formulation of these specific studies that Ams and new fields have described. It was the effort to go out and actually conduct site specific studies on actual mining areas compared to controls both in Central Bay and in Sassoon Bay.

Chuck: to really better characterize using actual data from our system what the impacts are.

Chuck: And I think from both the Ams and the new field studies, we’ve seen that

Chuck: the the study results are basically consistent and supportive of our earlier conclusions and hypotheses.

Chuck: and it seems like the mechanisms and the functions that they’re describing are very similar to what we drew from the scientific literature that was available at the time.

Chuck: And so I’m pleased to see that

Chuck: the early studies, the synthesis and compilation of information, has led to the actual site specific studies. We’ve got new information from both Ams and new fields that helps us better understand the impacts of sand mining and benthic disturbance, an important

Chuck: environmental issues, certainly for San Francisco Bay.

Chuck: And to better put this entire issue into a proper context.

Chuck: And so I appreciate the opportunity to provide some comments.

Chuck: But, more importantly, I appreciate the advancement of science that’s occurred over the last 25 years

Chuck: to help us better understand what’s actually occurring within this portion of the estuarine ecosystem.

Pat Showalter: Thank you. All right. So does anybody have questions for chuck or comments?

Andrew Gunther: And I have one.

Pat Showalter: Yeah. Commissioner, Gunther.

Andrew Gunther: I have one question for Christian related to the letter that was submitted the summary letter, and I

Andrew Gunther: I think I know the answer to this question, but I thought it best if I asked. And it’s about that, I think there’s a missing word that makes a sentence confusing to me. So I just wanted to double check

Andrew Gunther: on page 4 the second full paragraph

Andrew Gunther: that says, Benthic, samples collected months after mining events exhibited densities.

Andrew Gunther: and I think it’s supposed to say exhibited higher densities.

Andrew Gunther: and I just wanted to make sure

Andrew Gunther: before I insert a word that demonstrates my misunderstanding, and I thought I would verify.

Pat Showalter: Page 4.

Christian Marsh: Yeah, it’s page 4, second full paragraph. It says, Benthic samples collected months after mining events, exhibited densities of 2

Christian Marsh: amphipod taxa and total amphipods which suggests a positive correlation between disturbance and recolonization.

Christian Marsh: That’s from.

bgoeden: It was on one of the slides that Jay presented like that exact quote.

Christian Marsh: Yeah, that’s that is, I think it’s

Christian Marsh: I think it’s not saying higher or lower. I think it’s just

Christian Marsh: stating that the densities that were revealed suggested a positive correlation.

Christian Marsh: and but but Jay Johnson would probably be the best person to to comment. Actually.

Pat Showalter: Jay, can you help us out with that.

jayjohnson: Yeah, I’m I’m gonna try. I’d I’d probably use the word. Andy altered.

Andrew Gunther: Okay that there was. It seemed to me that densities need to be modified in size.

jayjohnson: Right, right? And I’d have to go back in to see where that statement or what statement we’ve actually made in the original report that that’s been, you know, pulled from. But what we saw and we talked about that in the Delta specifically is that the sites that had recently been mined.

jayjohnson: and and I’d have to go back to find out how recently was recent. But we were trying to do it within 6 months to a year would indicate that we actually saw. And and Tim made the same comment. You see, increased species diversity

jayjohnson: that you didn’t see beforehand, because Potamocorbula or Corbicula

jayjohnson: go away, and they’re such an outstanding, very effective competitor that as they get established they out-compete everything else.

Andrew Gunther: Okay, great. Then I thank you. I I just I wanted to make sure that I

Andrew Gunther: I understood that because I had marked it as not being something that wasn’t necessarily but intuitive.

Christian Marsh: Yeah.

Andrew Gunther: So great. Thank you very much.

Christian Marsh: But I appreciate that you’re you’re doing such a close reading, though. Thank you.

Pat Showalter: Yes, we can count on Commissioner Gunther to always do his homework. Very, very good at that. Okay,

Pat Showalter: So we’re in the public comment. I mean, you know, I’m asking for any public comments about this. We’ve had questions and and that’s good. But this is also a time to have discussion. So would anyone like to

Pat Showalter: share their thoughts with the with the group?

Pat Showalter: You know, it’s obvious this isn’t a group of politicians, because

Pat Showalter: there would be lots of hands raised. Okay, even local politicians.

Pat Showalter: All right. So then I with that, I think that I will pass it.

Pat Showalter: Annie. Is. Is there any comments you would like to make.

Andrew Gunther: No other than I appreciated Chuck chiming in in terms of what we’ve learned over time.

Andrew Gunther: and it really takes a long time to do this kind of work and to clarify certain things. And and of course, we also see they’re always

Andrew Gunther: in a highly variable environment like this. There are always outstanding possible questions that we might have, and whether this was an appropriate year or not to do the analysis. And so there’s a there’s. There’s a lot of there are always some outstanding questions, but I feel like this is an example of us directing

Andrew Gunther: the studies that have refined our knowledge and greatly improved our ability to understand

Andrew Gunther: what the sand mining activities are resulting in in the Bendic environment. It doesn’t mean we know everything, but it it’s certainly a impressive, in my opinion, effort to jointly fact, find in the community. And this is something that I always try and take a moment to point out that this kind of joint fact, finding, in my opinion, is currently under attack

Andrew Gunther: by the Federal Government, who is rejecting

Andrew Gunther: joint fact, finding, rejecting evidence, and I think that it’s incumbent upon us if we’re going to work as a community of stakeholders to find answers and adopt policies that we base that on evidence that we can jointly develop together. And I think this is going to be an ever more important model, as some communities in the United States appear ready to reject this method.

Andrew Gunther: And so I’m very happy to be part of this here at Bcdc. See, this is something we have done at the water board. It’s something that the consulting firms that we have just heard from do on a regular basis for us in the region. And I just I think it’s really an example of the right way to go about understanding things.

Pat Showalter: Yeah, I would have to say ditto to that. And for instance, one of the reasons I asked about the 2,000. You know the

Pat Showalter: the the water year in 2,000. I think it was 2,008. It might have been another year. We were trying to tag fish

Pat Showalter: and the steelhead trout streams of Santa Clara County, and we weren’t able to do that because there wasn’t any water, so there wasn’t any fish, because it was so dry. If that’s what I remember. Anyway, there was a year like that when and when Chuck was involved, where where we just we couldn’t do the scientific program because the you know, the water wasn’t there but So

Pat Showalter: so sometimes these, you know, these water years in certain circumstances can make a big impact. So that’s why I wanted to ask about that. The other thing I wanted to confirm is that this collaborative report that Hanson mentioned is on our annotated bibliography. That’s I remember seeing it there, and that’s I think I just want to confirm that with Brenda.

bgoeden: Yeah, Pat, I don’t think we have pulled together an annotated bibliography for this work group. I think you’re thinking of the Ben, the beneficial reuse work group where we did pull an annotated bibliography together.

bgoeden: I will double check, but that’s my recollection, and I maybe am just not remembering that we’ve done that, Jaime, if I’m not remembering, can you remind me if you think we have an annotated bibliography for Sand, I think we have it for.

Pat Showalter: Or just maybe a list of of yeah.

bgoeden: Yeah, we can create one for you for sure. I just don’t think we’ve done that. But we do have the report. Here in the office. It’s about 2 inches thick

bgoeden: and has a nice peer review section in the back, so we can probably make that digital and post it. If people want to see it.

bgoeden: Yeah,

bgoeden: yeah, or at least a link to it. I don’t know how big of documents we can put on the website without me getting in trouble.

bgoeden: yeah. And I guess the only other thing. Sorry. I’ll just. I have a quick mention of the next meeting if we’re finished, but I don’t want to interrupt. If we’re not.

Pat Showalter: no, I I think I just want to say ditto to the to what Commissioner Gunther said about the collaborative efforts.

Pat Showalter: They’re so powerful because they bring together information that people from a range of perspectives can evaluate. As you go forward and you can bring up, you can hear the questions of different constituencies as you’re doing the studies to make sure that the studies are relevant for everybody involved.

Pat Showalter: and that means that in the end they’re much, much more likely to have credibility for everyone and be useful for everyone. So I, too, am really happy to kind of be part of this trajectory, and I do very much appreciate the

Pat Showalter: the sand miners and the scientists taking part. So I just wanted to mention that as well.

Pat Showalter: So yeah, about the next meetings.

bgoeden: Great. Yeah, thank you. Pat, I echo that sentiment, too. It’s been several years worth of working together on science, which has been fantastic.

bgoeden: so our next meeting we had planned, I think, for July 15.th We are going to ask the Commissioners to see if we can alter that meeting date to accommodate a scientist who has some information about how sea birds use the central bay, and I think what we’re looking to probably do is look at the fish entrainment issues, the studies that are available on that and kind of the

bgoeden: upper level critters

bgoeden: connecting to this, not sure if that will take the whole meeting. We might combine that part of the meeting with another section, but unfortunately, that week that we have it scheduled is a little tough, for this particular person. It’s Julie Thayer out of the Fairlawn Institute.

bgoeden: So

bgoeden: yeah, I think we may have 2 more meetings to wrap this up as our as our hope. So pat, check your emails for Kat. She’s gonna come back to you, Commissioner Gunther and Commissioner Nelson, to see if we can

bgoeden: make a date that works a little bit little bit different from the date that we had proposed. But that is basically it. We will be doing a quick

bgoeden: well, not a quick! A meeting on how sand mine, how the sand that is mined is used in the region, because I know the Commission had a lot of questions about that, so we will touch on that as well or not. Touch on that. We’ll have a meeting that includes that information as well.

bgoeden: So just know that that is still in the game plan.

Andrew Gunther: So we are not gonna have that meeting as currently scheduled on July 15.th

bgoeden: If we can get another meeting date we will move it.

Andrew Gunther: Okay.

bgoeden: But we have to figure out if we can get another meeting date.

bgoeden: Yeah, thank you. And I appreciate your being willing to meet this many times on this issue, so appreciate that commissioners.

Pat Showalter: Okay? So if that would bring us to 6, which is general public comment, and that’s this is an opportunity that we always have in public meetings to allow anybody to talk about what is not on today’s agenda. So if there’s anyone who would like to speak to this group about something that isn’t on this agenda. Please raise your hand in zoom or

Pat Showalter: on the screen, and we will call on you so you can share your thoughts with us.

Pat Showalter: I’m looking for raised hands.

Pat Showalter: Kat, are you looking to? I do not see any.

bgoeden: I don’t either.

Pat Showalter: All right. Well.

Pat Showalter: okay, well, thank you. I mean, it is a joy and a pleasure and a privilege to be part of this scientific endeavor, and I want to thank everybody for their attendance, and with that this meeting is adjourned.

bgoeden: Thank you.

bgoeden: Thank you. Thanks everyone for joining.