Mare Island
Mare Island is a peninsula in the United States in the city of Vallejo, about 23 miles northeast of San Francisco. The Napa River forms its eastern side as it enters the Carquinez Strait juncture with the east side of San Pablo Bay. Mare Island is considered a peninsula because no full body of water separates this or several other named "islands" from the mainland. Instead, a series of small sloughs cause seasonal water-flows among the so-called islands. Mare Island is the largest of these at about 3.5 miles a mile wide. In 1775, Spanish explorer Perez Ayala was the first European to land on what would become Mare Island – he named it Isla de la Plana; this area was part of Rancho Suscol, deeded to General Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo in 1844. It became a waypoint for early settlers. In 1835, whilst traversing the Carquinez Strait, a crude ferry transporting men and livestock capsized in a squall. Among the livestock feared lost in the wreckage was the prized white mare of General Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo, the Mexican Commandante for Northern California.
Several days General Vallejo's mare was found on the island, having swum ashore. Grateful for the fortunate turn of events, he renamed the island to Isla de la Yegua, Spanish for Mare Island, in her honor. In 1892, development of the Mare Island Golf Club began, making it the oldest golf course west of the Mississippi. On November 6, 1850, two months after California was admitted to statehood, President Fillmore reserved Mare Island for government use. On January 15, 1852, Secretary of the Navy William Alexander Graham ordered a Naval Commission to select a site for a Naval Yard on the Pacific Coast. Commodore D. Sloat along with Commodore C. Ringgold, Simon F. Blunt and William P. S. Sanger were appointed to the commission. On July 13, 1852, Sloat recommended the island across the Napa River from the settlement of Vallejo, as it was "free from ocean gales and from floods and freshets." The Navy Department acted favorably on Commodore Sloat's recommendations and Mare Island was purchased for use as a naval shipyard in July 1853 at a cost of $83,410.
On September 16, 1854, Mare Island became the first permanent U. S. naval installation on the west coast, with Commodore David Farragut, as Mare Island's first commander. For over a century, Mare Island hosted the Navy's Mare Island Naval Shipyard; the growing size and number of the country's naval fleet was making older facilities obsolete and led to increased building and refitting of shipyards nationally. In 1872, the U. S. Public Works Department commenced construction of a 508-foot drydock on the island, setting it on a foundation of cut granite blocks; the work was completed in 1891. A second drydock was begun in a concrete structure 740 feet long set on wooden piles. By 1941 a third drydock drydock number four was under construction; the ammunition depot and submarine repair base were fireproof buildings. A million dollar, three-way vehicle causeway to Vallejo replaced a ferry service. Before World War II, Mare Island had been in a continual state of up-building. By 1941, new projects included improvements to the central power plant, a new pattern storage building, a large foundry, machine shop, magazine building, paint shop, new administration building, a huge storehouse.
The yard was expected to be able to paint six to eight large naval vessels at a time. Several finger piers had been built, as well as a new shipbuilding wharf, adding one 500-foot and a 750-foot berth, it employed 5593 workers at the beginning of 1939, increased to 18,500 by May 1941, with a monthly payroll of $3.5 million. In 1941, the drafting department had expanded to three buildings accommodating over 400 naval architects and draftsmen; the hospital had 584 beds. During World War II, the shipyard employed up to 50,000 workers. In 1969, the Navy transferred its Brown Water Navy Riverine Training Forces from Coronado, California, to Mare Island. Swift Boats, PBRs conducted boat operations throughout the named Napa-Sonoma Marshes State Wildlife Area, on the north and west portions of Mare Island. Mare Island Naval Base was deactivated during the 1995 cycle of US base closures, but the U. S. Navy Reserves still have access to the water portions of the State Wildlife Area for any riverine warfare training being conducted from their new base in Sacramento, California.
The USS Guitarro, a Sturgeon-class submarine, SSN-665, was constructed at Mare Island between December 9, 1964, July 27, 1968. On May 15, 1969, while still under construction and tied to the pier, the Guitarro was flooded and sank when construction crews mismanaged testing procedures, it took three days to raise many months to salvage her. During the latter years of Mare Island's military use, U. S. Marines were trained including. A. S. T. Security Guards, Security Force Reaction Forces. In the 1970s Navy technical training schools included those for Data Systems Technicians, Firecontrol Technicians, Communications Technicians and nuclear power ratings of many types. In 1993 Congress approved the findings of the Base Realignment and Closure report, leading to the closure of Mare Island Naval Shipyard; the shipyard had long been the economic engine of the city of Vallejo, employing 10,000 workers after reductions in 1988. When Congress ordered the base closure, the shipyard employed 5,800 workers; the vision of rebuilding Mare Island as a vital place where people lived and worked was a key goal in the base conv
Inverted river delta
An inverted river delta is special category of river delta in which the narrow end of the delta emerges on the seafront and the wide end is located further inland, so that with respect to the seafront, the locations of both ends of the delta are inverted. River deltas form on flat, coastal floodplains: the narrow end located at the point where a river fans out and deposits sediment in a region extending outward into the body of water which the river empties. In the case of an inverted delta, the delta is located at the waterway's exit from a large, flat valley, yet still inside the valley; the sediment is dropped within the valley and the clear water exits into a bay or the ocean, so the apex of the delta is at this exit, a configuration said to be inverted from that seen. Inverted deltas do not last long in geological terms, since they tend to fill up with sediments rather and become normal deltas. A classic example of an inverted river delta is the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, which lies at the confluence of the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers in California.
The water from the rivers that drain the entire, large California Central Valley exit through the Carquinez Strait, a narrow gap in the Coast Range. An inverted river delta exists behind this strait. Another example is the delta of the Tagus river in Portugal, although due to sedimentation this delta is now only partially inverted, with the valley now filled with sediment, it is still about 15 km wide and 25 km long, compared with the 2 km wide exit into the sea, forms a large lagoon with large and shallow sand banks which go uncovered during low tides. The delta used to be bigger thousands of years ago
Crockett, California
Crockett is a census-designated place in Contra Costa County, in the East Bay sub-region of the San Francisco Bay Area, United States. The population was 3,094 at the 2010 census, it is located 28 miles northeast of San Francisco. Other nearby communities include: Port Costa, Vallejo, Rodeo, Hercules and Richmond. Crockett is located on the Mexican land grant Rancho El Pinole made to Ygnacio Martinez, is named after Joseph B. Crockett, a judge on the California Supreme Court; the town started when Thomas Edwards Sr. bought 1,800 acres of land from Judge Crockett in 1866. Edwards built his home in 1867 and when other settlers arrived, he started the first general store in Crockett. Edwards' home still is known as "The Old Homestead", a California Historical Landmark. Crocketville post office was established in 1883, the name was changed to Crockett that year. In 1906, an agricultural cooperative of Hawaiian sugar cane growers built a sugar factory in Crockett turning it into a company town for the California and Hawaiian Sugar Company.
The cane was grown in Hawaii and delivered by ship to Crockett, where the C&H refinery turned it into a variety of finished products. C & H soon became a dominant force in Crockett, called a "company town." By the 1920s, the company employed about 95 percent of the residents. Employment peaked at 2,500. C & H helped its employees obtain bank loans so that they could build houses. Company architects worked on designing the houses; the company funded civic programs. By the 1960s, the good times were over for C & H and Crockett. Revenues and profits began dropping. There were many layoffs. In 1984, the company proposed building a natural gas-powered cogeneration plant that would provide steam for the sugar refinery and low-cost electricity for Crockett. A protest group calling itself the Crockett Power Plant Committee, supported by many Crockett residents formed and spent the next nine years opposing the proposal; the proposed power plant was built, but only after the company agreed to make major changes.
C & H agreed to give Crockett $300,000 per year for the ensuing 30 years, which funds its police and volunteer fire fighting departments. The Hawaiian sugar farmers sold their holdings in 1993 to Hawaii-based Alexander & Baldwin, which converted C & H from a co-op into a corporation. In 1998, A & B sold a controlling interest to Citicorp Venture Capital. American Sugar Refining bought H in 2006, merging it with its other sugar operations. Revenues and profits continued their decline into the 21st Century, until the Crockett plant processed its last shipment of Hawaiian sugar in 2017. Raw sugar now arrives from the globe’s sun belt: Australia, the Philippines and Nicaragua, among other countries <https://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/18/us/the-c-h-sign.html>. In August 1994, Unocal's Rodeo San Francisco Refinery released an estimated 80 to 225 tons of dangerous Catacarb, a caustic chemical used to purify hydrogen for gasoline production, into the air over a sixteen-day period; as a result, thousands of local residents and workers filed lawsuits.
In 1995, the company agreed to pay $3 million in fines after pleading guilty to 12 misdemeanor charges. Less than two weeks after Stamford, Conn.-based Tosco Corporation took over the refinery, Unocal agreed to a $80 million settlement. The litigation, commenced by the predecessor firm to Scott Cole & Associates, alleged Unocal managers kept the refinery operating during the leak to meet production schedules and enjoy financial bonuses--conduct which led to massive personal injuries across Crockett and neighboring towns; the story is depicted in the book Fallout. According to the United States Census Bureau, the CDP has a total area of 1.1 square miles, all of it land. Crockett is located; the Carquinez Bridge, part of Interstate 80, links Crockett with the city of Vallejo to the north across the strait. To the east of Crockett along the south shore of the strait are the city of Martinez. South of Crockett are the city of Hercules. Farther southwest on I-80 are the cities of Richmond and Oakland.
This region experiences warm and dry summers, with no average monthly temperatures above 71.6 °F. According to the Köppen Climate Classification system, Crockett has a warm-summer Mediterranean climate, abbreviated "Csb" on climate maps; the Bailey Art Museum features the work of internationally acclaimed sculptor Clayton Bailey, a resident of nearby Port Costa. The 3,200 square feet space brings together works from across the artist's five decades plus career featuring examples of Funk art, Nut art and metal sculpture, as well as pseudo-scientific curiosities by the artist's alter-ego Dr. Gladstone; the collection includes watercolor drawings by Betty Bailey and a gift shop. The former Crockett railroad station now serves as the home of the Crockett Historical Society; the 2010 United States Census reported that Crockett had a population of 3,094. The population density was 2,918.7 people per square mile. The racial makeup of Crockett was 2,468 White, 146 African American, 31 Native American, 108 Asian, 24 Pacific Islander, 123 from other races, 194 from two or more races.
Hispanic or Latino of any race were 490 persons. The Census reported that 100% of the
California State University Maritime Academy
The California State University Maritime Academy known as the California Maritime Academy, is one of 23 campuses in the California State University system and is one of seven degree-granting maritime academies in the United States and the only one on the West Coast. It is located in California; the university offers six different Bachelor's degrees, one Master's degree, but no Doctoral degrees. The California Nautical School was established in 1929, when California State Assembly Bill No. 253 was signed into law by Governor C. C. Young; the bill authorized the creation of the school, the appointment of a Board of Governors to manage the school and the acquisition of a training vessel. The school's mission was "to give practical and theoretical instruction in navigation, steam engines, gas engines, electricity in order to prepare young men to serve as officers in the American Merchant Marine." By 1930, a training vessel and a school site was acquired. Due to the Great Depression, the early days of the Academy were full of financial uncertainty.
As early as 1933, some state legislators were calling for the school's abolition. In order to save money, the cadets and instructors alike lived and held classes aboard the training vessel, the T. S. California State. Only after the passage of the Merchant Marine Act of 1936 did the funding for the Academy stabilize. In 1939 the California Nautical School adopted the California Maritime Academy. By 1940, the Academy was granting Bachelor of Science degrees and Naval Reserve commissions to its graduates. In 1943, the Academy moved to its present location in California. In the 1970s, after surviving another round of budget cuts and calls for the Academy's abolition, California Maritime Academy became a four-year institution; the 1970s marked the time when the first minority and female cadets graduated from California Maritime Academy. In 1996 California Maritime Academy became the twenty-second campus of the California State University system and was renamed California State University, Maritime; the new affiliation improved the Academy's funding prospects considerably.
The current training vessel is the T. S. Golden Bear, is the third training ship to carry that name. In September 2015, President Cropper proposed a campus name change before the California State University Board of Trustees to restore Academy to the official name; the Trustees approved the new name - California State University Maritime Academy. Since the passage of the Merchant Marine Act of 1970, the position of President of the Cal Maritime is commissioned as a Rear Admiral in the United States Maritime Service. Two past Presidents are alumni of the Academy itself. R. C. Dwyer replaced by N. E. Nichols due to Navy requirements for regular Navy officers to be in charge of Navy-owned ships. Early WWII – Superintendent and Master became separate positions. Edwin C. Miller appointed Interim Superintendent October 1971 – July 1972. On February 27, 1975, the title of "Superintendent" was changed to "President." Cal Maritime offers one graduate and six undergraduate degrees, all of which are tied to a nautical curriculum.
An additional Oceanography major is expected to be added in Fall 2020. Money magazine ranked Cal Maritime 121st in the country for value out of 727 schools it evaluated for its 2018-2019 Best Colleges ranking. In 2018 Forbes ranked Cal Maritime as the 297th top college in 58th in the West; the 2019 U. S. News & World Report college rankings lists Cal Maritime as #1 Top Public College and 3rd in the category "Regional Colleges". According to a study by the Equality of Opportunity Project, the Cal Maritime had the best results of any California college in helping transform students whose parents were poor into adults who are wealthy within a decade after graduation. 85% of poor students became wealthy. However, only 6% of the students came from poor families. Cal Maritime is the United States' only maritime academy on the West Coast and requires all undergraduate students to participate in the Corps of Cadets; the only similar program in the Western United States is at the junior college New Mexico Military Institute.
Since Maritime Academies comply with Title 46 Part 310 of the Code of Federal Regulations students are referred to as Cadets, required to wear uniforms, utilize a demerit-based disciplinary system. Participation in Navy Reserve Merchant Marine training program is no longer required, but Cadets still utilize Merchant Marine Navy-style uniforms and traditions. Based on academic majors cadets are organized into Squads, Sections and Companies which muster in Morning Formations several times a week, as well as stand watches on campus and aboard the training ship. There is no armed service obligation attached to graduation from the Cal Maritime. However, financial aid and additional career opportunities exist for those students who choose to participate in any of the several military programs available on the Cal Maritime campus: Coast Guard – Auxiliary University Program, Maritime Academy Graduate Program Navy – Strategic Sealift Officer Program Navy – Reserve Officer Training Corps Marine Corps – Reserve Officer Training Corps Air Force – Reserve Officer Training Corps Athletics teams at Cal Maritime are part of the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics competing in the California Pacific Conference
Vallejo, California
Vallejo is a waterfront city in Solano County, located in the North Bay subregion of the San Francisco Bay Area. Vallejo is geographically the closest North Bay city to the inner East Bay, so it is sometimes associated with that region, its population was 115,942 at the 2010 census. It is the tenth most populous city in the San Francisco Bay Area, the largest in Solano County. Vallejo sits on the northeastern shore of San Pablo Bay, 30 miles north of San Francisco, the northwestern shore of the Carquinez Strait and the southern end of the Napa River, 15 miles south of Napa; the city is named after General Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo, a native Californio, leading proponent of California's statehood, one of the first members of the California State Senate. Vallejo is home to the Six Flags Discovery Kingdom theme park, the now-defunct Mare Island Naval Shipyard, the regional office for Region 5 of the United States Forest Service; the colleges and universities in Vallejo are California Maritime Academy, the Vallejo Center campus of Solano Community College, Touro University California.
Vallejo's public transit includes the San Francisco Bay Ferry, which runs from downtown Vallejo to the San Francisco Ferry Building. SolTrans buses carry passengers around the cities of Vallejo and Benicia, as well as offer express services to Fairfield and Bay Area Rapid Transit stations in El Cerrito and Walnut Creek, California. Evans Transportation buses provide daily service to Oakland International Airport from a Courtyard by Marriott hotel adjacent to Six Flags Discovery Kingdom. Vallejo has twice served as the capital of the state of California: once in 1852 and again in 1853, both periods being brief; the State Capitol building burned to the ground in the 1880s and the Vallejo Fire Department requested aid from the Fire Department at Mare Island Naval Shipyard. As there were no bridges at that time, the Mare Island Fire Department had to be ferried across the Napa River, arriving to find only the foundation remaining; this was the first recorded mutual aid response in the state of California.
Vallejo is known for its naval and wartime history, the Zodiac Killer mystery, as the hometown of Bay Area rappers E-40 and Mac Dre. According to United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 49.5 square miles. Land area is 30.7 square miles, 18.9 square miles is water. The Napa River flows until it changes into the Mare Island Strait in Vallejo which flows into San Pablo Bay, in the northeastern part of San Francisco Bay. Vallejo is located on the southwestern edge of Solano County, California in the North Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area in Northern California. Vallejo is accessible by Interstate 80 between San Francisco and Sacramento, is the location for the northern half of the Carquinez Bridge, it is accessible by Interstate 780 from neighboring Benicia to the east, by Route 37 from Marin County to the west. Route 29 begins in the city near the Carquinez Bridge and travels north through the heart of the city and beyond into Napa County, entering neighboring American Canyon and Napa.
Several faults have been mapped in the vicinity of Vallejo. The San Andreas Fault and Hayward Faults are the most active faults, although the San Andreas is at some distance. Locally, the Sulphur Springs Valley Thrust Fault and Southampton Fault are found. No quaternary seismic activity along these minor faults has been observed with the possible exception of a slight offset revealed by trenching; the Sulphur Mountain and Green Valley faults have been associated with the Concord Fault to the south. The Concord Fault is considered active. There have been local cinnabar mines in the Vallejo area; the Hastings Mine and St. John's Mine contribute ongoing water contamination for mercury. Both Rindler Creek and Blue Rock Springs Creek have been affected; the city of Vallejo is located 30 miles northeast of San Francisco, 22 miles north of Oakland, 56 miles north of San Jose and 52 miles south of Sacramento. Vallejo borders the city of Benicia to the east, American Canyon and the Napa county line to the north, the Carquinez Strait to the south and the San Pablo Bay to the west.
Vallejo has a mild, coastal Mediterranean climate and can be an average of 10 degrees cooler than nearby inland cities. Vallejo is influenced by its position on the northeastern shore of San Pablo Bay, but is less sheltered from heatwaves than areas directly on or nearer the Pacific Ocean/Golden Gate such as San Francisco and Oakland. Although less marine, average temperatures range between 8 °C in January and 19.8 °C in July. However, summer is long with July–September being equal in historical average temperatures; this seasonal lag sees October averages being higher than in May in spite of it being after the Equinox. Vallejo was named the most diverse city in the United States in a 2012 study by Brown University based on 2010 census data, the most diverse city in the state of California by a Niche study based on 2017 American Community Survey data; the 2010 United States Census reported that Vallejo had a population of 115,942. The population density was 2,340.3 people per square mile. The racial makeup of Vallejo was 38,066 White, 25,572 African American, 757 Native American, 28,895 Asian, 1,239 Pacific Islander, 12,759 (11.0
Oakland, California
Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, United States. A major West Coast port city, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third largest city overall in the San Francisco Bay Area, the eighth most populated city in California, the 45th largest city in the United States. With a population of 425,195 as of 2017, it serves as a trade center for the San Francisco Bay Area. An act to incorporate the city was passed on May 4, 1852, incorporation was approved on March 25, 1854, which made Oakland a city. Oakland is a charter city. Oakland's territory covers what was once a mosaic of California coastal terrace prairie, oak woodland, north coastal scrub, its land served as a rich resource when its hillside oak and redwood timber were logged to build San Francisco. Oakland's fertile flatland soils helped. In the late 1860s, Oakland was selected as the western terminal of the Transcontinental Railroad. Following the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, many San Francisco citizens moved to Oakland, enlarging the city's population, increasing its housing stock and improving its infrastructure.
It continued to grow in the 20th century with its busy port, a thriving automobile manufacturing industry. The earliest known inhabitants were the Huchiun Indians; the Huchiun belonged to a linguistic grouping called the Ohlone. In Oakland, they were concentrated around Lake Merritt and Temescal Creek, a stream that enters the San Francisco Bay at Emeryville. In 1772, the area that became Oakland was colonized, with the rest of California, by Spanish settlers for the King of Spain. In the early 19th century, the Spanish crown granted the East Bay area to Luis María Peralta for his Rancho San Antonio; the grant was confirmed by the successor Mexican republic upon its independence from Spain. Upon his death in 1842, Peralta divided his land among his four sons. Most of Oakland fell within the shares given to Antonio Vicente; the portion of the parcel, now Oakland was called Encinal—Spanish for "oak grove"—due to the large oak forest that covered the area, which led to the city's name. During the 1850s—just as gold was discovered in California—Oakland started growing and developing because land was becoming too expensive in San Francisco.
The Chinese were struggling financially, as a result of the First Opium War, the Second Opium War, the Taiping Rebellion, so they began migrating to Oakland in an effort to provide for their families in China. However, the Chinese struggled to settle because they were discriminated against by the white community and their living quarters were burned down on several occasions; the majority of the Chinese migrants lived in unhealthy conditions in China and they had diseases, so plague spread into San Francisco though the Chinese were inspected for diseases upon their arrival to San Francisco. In 1851, three men—Horace Carpentier, Edson Adams, Andrew Moon—began developing what is now downtown Oakland. In 1852, the Town of Oakland became incorporated by the state legislature. During this time, Oakland had 75-100 inhabitants, two hotels, a wharf, two warehouses, only cattle trails. Two years on March 25, 1854, Oakland re-incorporated as the City of Oakland, with Horace Carpentier elected the first mayor, though a scandal ended his mayorship in less than a year.
The city and its environs grew with the railroads, becoming a major rail terminal in the late 1860s and 1870s. In 1868, the Central Pacific constructed the Oakland Long Wharf at Oakland Point, the site of today's Port of Oakland. A number of horsecar and cable car lines were constructed in Oakland during the latter half of the 19th century; the first electric streetcar set out from Oakland to Berkeley in 1891, other lines were converted and added over the course of the 1890s. The various streetcar companies operating in Oakland were acquired by Francis "Borax" Smith and consolidated into what became known as the Key System, the predecessor of today's publicly owned AC Transit. Oakland was one of the worst affected cities in California, impacted by the plague epidemic. Quarantine measures were set in place at the Oakland ports requiring the authorities at the port to inspect the arriving vessels for the presence of infected rats. Quarantine authorities at these ports inspected over a thousand vessels per year for plague and yellow fever.
By 1908, over 5,000 people were detained in quarantine. Hunters were sent to poison the affected areas in Oakland and shoot the squirrels, but the eradication work was limited in its range because the State Board of Health and the United States Public Health Service were only allotted about $60,000 a year to eradicate the disease. During this period Oakland did not have sufficient health facilities, so some of the infected patients were treated at home; the State Board of Health along with Oakland advised physicians to promptly report any cases of infected patients. Yet, in 1919 it still resulted in a small epidemic of Pneumonic plague which killed a dozen people in Oakland; this started when a man killed a squirrel. After eating the squirrel, he fell ill four days and another household member contracted the plague; this in turn was passed on either indirectly to about a dozen others. The officials in Oakland acted by issuing death certificates to monitor the spread of plague. At the time of incorporation in 1852, Oaklan
Napa River
The Napa River 55 miles long, is a river in the U. S. state of California. It drains a famous wine-growing region, called the Napa Valley, in the mountains northeast of San Francisco. Milliken Creek and Mt. Veeder watersheds are a few of its many tributaries; the mouth is at Vallejo where the inter-tidal zone of fresh and salt waters flow into the Carquinez Straits on San Pablo Bay. The Napa River rises in northwestern Napa County just south of the summit of Mt. St. Helena in the Mayacamas Mountains of the California Coast Ranges; the source begins as seasonal Kimball Canyon Creek in Robert Louis Stevenson State Park at an elevation of 3,745 feet which descends the southern slope of Mt. St. Helena to Kimball Canyon Dam, it flows south for 4 miles. In the valley, it flows southeast past Calistoga, St Helena, Rutherford and through Napa, its head of navigation. Downstream from Napa, it forms a tidal estuary, entering Mare Island Strait, a narrow channel on the north end of San Pablo Bay, it discharges into San Pablo Bay through the Napa Sonoma Marsh.
The Napa River watershed encompasses 426 square miles. Larger tributaries, such as Dry and Soda creeks, show signs of recent incision and have graded to the incised current level of the mainstem Napa River. In some cases, smaller tributaries cutting across the valley floor have not adjusted to the lowered level of the mainstem and are elevated at their confluence with the mainstem, forming potential barriers to upstream fish migration. Several large dams were built between 1924 and 1959 on major eastside tributaries and the northern headwaters of the Napa River. In addition, many smaller dams can be found throughout the watershed; these numerous dams are impassable barriers to salmon and steelhead seeking their historic spawning grounds. The river supports a remarkable diversity of fishes and recovering salmonid populations chinook salmon and steelhead trout. In 2003 the Napa County Resource Conservation District began an ongoing salmon monitoring program, have recorded a run of 400 - 1000 fall-run Chinook salmon the past several years.
The Chinook run begins in late October through January. Conclusive evidence of historical chinook salmon populations in the Napa River basin have not been established, but the river provides appropriate habitat for salmon and its location near the entrance to the Sacramento/San Joaquin Rivers make it that salmon would have at least ventured into the Napa River. In 2013, a genetics study of Napa River chinook salmon revealed that two adults migrated from the Klamath River and spawned in the Napa River, since four juvenile chinook collected from the Napa River in 2010 were proved to be siblings from the close similarity of their DNA and that the latter was characteristic of Klamath River chinook; these findings have important implications for the protection of the federally endangered Coastal California Chinook Salmon ESU since the Napa River, nor any stream in the Bay Area, was included in this ESU. The Napa River basin is estimated to have supported a spawning run of 6,000–8,000 steelhead, as many as 2,000–4,000 coho salmon.
By the late 1960s, coho salmon were extirpated from the watershed and the steelhead population is now reduced to less than a few hundred adults. Flow reductions in key rearing streams have reduced food availability for juvenile steelhead, causing reduced growth and survival. A chum salmon was caught in the river. In addition, a fourth salmon species, sockeye salmon, was identified in the Napa River. Although diminished, the Napa River basin continues to support a fish community of greater diversity than the Sacramento and San Joaquin River systems, including a nearly intact community of sixteen native fish species, including Steelhead, fall-run Chinook salmon and river lamprey, hitch, tule perch, Sacramento splittail; because of this diversity the Napa River has been prioritized for special protection. White sturgeon and many other native and non-native fishes utilize the Napa River watershed; the California golden beaver was extant. Beaver have recolonized the Napa River and have been documented in Napa as well as near Rutherford and Oak Knoll.
As part of urban renewal in the 1970s, a concrete cover was removed from culverted sections of the Napa Creek, re-exposing the water to daylight. There is some debate as to whether this constituted one of the country's earliest "daylighting" projects, since the construction was undertaken with little thought to the river's ecology or restoration of riparian habitat. Napa Creek is a western tributary of the Napa River in downtown Napa; this construction is not believed to be responsible for flooding along the river. More vineyard owners with property that borders the Rutherford Reach, a 4.5-mile stretch of the Napa River between St. Helena and Oakville, are allowing prime land to return to a natural state in order to help preserve the ecology of the river; the project known as Rutherford Restoration Project involves 23 property owners have combined forces to provide 18 acres of land to this cause. After the restoration, native North American beaver returned to the area, establishing 3-4 beaver dams.
These keystone species have been shown to increase fish, bi
