Petaluma River

Information about Petaluma River

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The Petaluma River flowing through Petaluma. View is to the southeast.
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The mouth of the Petaluma River on San Pablo Bay, adjacent to Sears Point. View is to the northeast.
The Petaluma River is a river in Sonoma County, California that becomes a tidal slough near its mouth. It flows from the farmland northwest of Petaluma, through the heart of Petaluma's old town, on through ten miles of extensive marshes, before reaching the northwest corner of San Pablo Bay. The United States Army Corps of Engineers dredges the river from the San Pablo Bay to Petaluma, ensuring that it remains navigable for gravel-barges and pleasure craft. The extensive wetland marshes provide an important wildlife habitat and fish hatchery. The Petaluma River is fully tidal for eleven miles from its mouth, indicating the low gradient of most of its course. Southerly portions of the Petaluma River form a natural boundary between Marin County and Sonoma County. The western slopes of the Sonoma Mountains, including Sonoma Mountain, drain to the Petaluma River watershed.

Since approximately the mid 1850s with onset of intensive European immigration, the agricultural uses including overgrazing have contributed to diminished water quality of the Petaluma River. Some of the pollutants present include nitrates, phosphates, petroleum hydrocarbons, pesticides and sediment.[1] In addition there are considerable pollutants contributed from urban runoff particularly the city of Petaluma, from which heavy metals and hydrocarbons form a disproportionate contribution.[2] Only in about 1990 were material steps taken to mitigate such water pollution; however, continuing human population expansion makes difficult the attainment of State of California water quality goals.

See also

References

1. ^ Petaluma River Water Quality Profile
2. ^ Kay Ransom, C. Michael Hogan, Ballard George et al., Environmental Impact Report for the Petaluma General Plan, prepared by Earth Metrics Inc. for the city of Petaluma (1986),
Sonoma County is on the northwest coast of California, one of the northernmost parts of the greater San Francisco Bay Area, U.S. Its population at the 2000 census was 458,614. Its largest city and county seat is Santa Rosa.
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The term slough (in the UK, pronounced IPA: /ˈslaʊ/ (as in "cow"); in the US and Canada, pronounced /sluː/
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Petaluma, California
Location in Sonoma County and the state of California
Coordinates:
Country United States
State California
County Sonoma
Area
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marsh, or morass, is a type of wetland which is subject to frequent or continuous inundation.[1] Typically a marsh features grasses, rushes, reeds, typhas, sedges, and other herbaceous plants (possibly with low-growing woody plants) in a context of shallow water.
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San Pablo Bay is a shallow tidal estuary that forms the northern extension of San Francisco Bay in northern California in the United States. It receives the waters of the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers, via Suisun Bay and the Carquinez Strait on its east end, and it
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United States Army Corps of Engineers, or USACE, is a federal agency made up of some 34,600 civilian and 650 military men and women. The Corps's mission is to provide military and civil works engineering services to the United States, including:

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Dredging is the repositioning of soil from a marine environment, using specialized equipment, in order to initiate infrastructural and/or ecological improvements. In this definition "repositioning" stands for the process of (1) removal, (2) transport, (3) placement and often (4)
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A body of water, such as a river, canal or lake, is navigable if it is deep and wide enough for a vessel to pass and there are no obstructions, like rocks, trees and low bridges. Shallow rivers may be made navigable by the installation of locks that increase and regulate water depth.
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B.A.R.G.E., the Big August Rec.Gambling Excursion, is a yearly convention held in Las Vegas during the first weekend of August (other than in 2006 when it was moved to later in the month of August due to a conflict with the World Series of Poker as some attendees participate in
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marsh, or morass, is a type of wetland which is subject to frequent or continuous inundation.[1] Typically a marsh features grasses, rushes, reeds, typhas, sedges, and other herbaceous plants (possibly with low-growing woody plants) in a context of shallow water.
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hatchery is a facility where eggs are hatched under artificial conditions, especially those of fish or poultry. It may be used for ex-situ conservation purposes, i.e. to breed rare or endangered species under controlled conditions; alternatively, it may be for economic reasons (i.e.
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Marin County (IPA: /məˈrɪn/) is a county located in the North San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California, across the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco. As of 2000, the population was 247,289.
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The Sonoma Mountains are a northwest-southeast trending formation of California Coast Ranges in Sonoma County, California, USA.[1] The range is approximately fourteen miles (22.5 km) long and separates the Sonoma Creek watershed from the Petaluma River watershed.
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Sonoma Mountain is a prominent landform within the Sonoma Mountains of southern Sonoma County, California.[1] This place name is also a recognized American Viticulture Area known as the Sonoma Mountain AVA.
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A drainage basin is a region of land where water from rain or snow melt drains downhill into a body of water, such as a river, lake, dam, estuary, wetland, sea or ocean. The drainage basin includes both the streams and rivers that convey the water as well as the land surfaces from
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Agriculture (from Agri Latin for ager ("a field"), and culture, from the Latin cultura "cultivation" in the strict sense of "tillage of the soil". A literal reading of the English word yields "tillage of the soil of a field".
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Overgrazing occurs when plants are exposed to livestock grazing for extended periods of time, or without sufficient recovery periods. It reduces the usefulness of the land and is one cause of desertification and erosion.
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A pesticide is a substance or mixture of substances used for preventing, controlling, or lessening the damage caused by a pest.[1] A pesticide may be a chemical substance, biological agent (such as a virus or bacteria), antimicrobial,
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Water pollution is a large set of adverse effects upon water bodies such as lakes, rivers, oceans, and groundwater caused by human activities.

Although natural phenomena such as volcanoes, algae blooms, storms, and earthquakes also cause major changes in water quality and
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Overpopulation is a condition when an organism's numbers exceed the carrying capacity of its ecological niche. In common parlance, the term usually refers to the relationship between the human population and its environment, the Earth.
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Water quality is the physical, chemical and biological characteristics of water, characterized through the methods of hydrometry. The primary bases for such characterization are parameters which relate to drinking water, safety of human contact and for health of ecosystems.
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endangered species is a population of an organism which is at risk of becoming extinct because it is either few in number, or threatened by changing environmental or predation parameters.
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In physical geography, a wetland is an environment "at the interface between truly terrestrial ecosystems and aquatic systems making them inherently
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