User:Mglee9/Albany Bulb

History
Like the Point Isabel peninsula to the north and the Berkeley Marina, Point Emery, and Emeryville Marina Peninsulas to the south, the Bulb peninsula is a relic of almost a century of systematic filling of the shallow Bay and its adjacent wetland. The development dream was to join the peninsulas, leaving a narrow shipping channel edged by commerce.

The tidelands off Berkeley and Albany were sold by the state of California in the 1870s, as railroads extended tracks northward along the waterfront from the Oakland terminus of the Transcontinental Railroad. (These tracks soon became the main transcontinental line.) Early in the 20th century, the tidelands were acquired by the rival Santa Fe Railroad.

Creation of the Bulb peninsula can be said to have begun in 1939, when the Santa Fe Railroad dynamited El Cerrito del Sur, the low hill on Fleming Point southwest of Albany Hill, to build Golden Gate Fields race track. The debris was pushed into the Bay to create parking lots. Almost immediately afterward, the City of Albany extended Buchanan Street west on Bay fill, creating a lagoon between Buchanan and the north edge of the race track. Aerial photos show the gradual filling of this lagoon at the same time that dumping extended the peninsula west into the Bay and, later, north onto the Plateau. The small salt marsh south of Buchanan, fed by Codornices and Village Creeks, grew in the last remnants of the lagoon—an echo of much larger wetlands that once flourished farther south, where the creek waters emptied into the Bay behind the dynamited hill.

The Bulb proper—the round hill at the tip of the peninsula—was created in 1963, after the City of Albany signed a contract with Santa Fe Railroad for the disposal of construction debris. Thus, the Bulb is made of mostly of construction debris such as concrete and rebar, which is still very visible today. The usual fill method was to enclose part of the shallow Bay with rock and concrete rip-rap, fill the created lagoon with garbage and debris, and (usually) top off the lagoon with a layer of clay. However, this filling was largely halted by efforts of Save The Bay from the 1960s to the 1980s. Lawsuits against the landfill operator brought the dumping to a halt in 1983, although the rectangular lagoon at the west end of the Bulb peninsula remains.

The City of Albany entertained a variety of proposals for development of the peninsula, including high-rise hotels and a marina. In 2002, however, 17 years of effort by Citizens for Eastshore State Park (now Citizens for Eastshore Parks) resulted in the Plateau and lower Neck, along with shoreline to the north and south, becoming part of The Eastshore State Park. The City of Albany maintains ownership of The Bulb itself, but continues to negotiate to have the State Parks Department (owners of the park) and/or East Bay Regional Park District (managers of the park and owners of some adjacent shoreline) take over the Bulb. Other entities are reluctant due to liability and potential costs of making the area, with its projecting concrete and rebar, "safe." Meanwhile, the Bulb area and adjacent Albany Beach have become one of the most heavily used outdoor recreation sites in the Bay.

Natural conditions and ecology
San Francisco Bay currents were altered by creation of the Bulb and as well as the fill peninsulas to the north and south. (While Point Isabel is naturally occurring, its hill was dynamited in the 1950s, and marshes between it and the mainland were filled). Thus, one result of the Bulb has been westward extension of tidal mudflats at the mouths of Codornices, Village, and Marin Creeks, between the Bulb peninsula and Point Isabel. These are known as the Albany Mudflats, and are important habitat for waterfowl and shorebirds. The wooden posts in the area often serve as perches for peregrine falcons and ospreys eating their catches.

Another result of the Bulb's creation was the formation of Albany Beach, composed of low dunes and a sandy beach running south between the Bulb peninsula and Fleming Point. Sandy beaches are rare along the San Francisco Bay, but strong tidal currents to and from the Golden Gate tend to create them along the Berkeley and Albany shorelines. The beach has been heavily used by dog owners for decades.

Strong winds make the water south of the Bulb peninsula, off the beach, popular with wind- and kite- surfers. The sheltered lagoon at the west end is a calm-water refuge during storms, and shorebirds use its riprap edge at high tide.

Like other abandoned dumps, the Bulb became quickly vegetated. Non-native vegetation composes a majority of the plant cover, including yellow star-thistle, pampas grass, and fennel, but native vegetation such as pickleweed and salt grass also grows on the Bulb. Eel grass near the Bulb tip is also an important subtidal habitat. The south shore's riprap is largely un-vegetated, but lagoons and some gentler shoreline on the north, facing the Albany Mudflats, have welcomed typical salt-marsh vegetation such as salt grass and gum plant.

The Bulb provides habitat for a variety of wildlife, including songbirds, rats, mice, and black-tailed hares, as well as snakes, hawks and barn owls that feed on them. The Plateau area, once popular for flying model airplanes, has been partly fenced off and is now a habitat for burrowing owls. This measure was taken to mitigate habitat lost to the construction of sports fields to the south. In 2016, a birder sighted and photographed at least one burrowing owl being flushed out of the vegetation by dogs, who are not permitted within the closed area. The owl has since been spotted there again, but concerns remain about how dogs may affect this species, which is quickly disappearing as a result of human development.