James Levine is a civil engineer. He’s additionally an entrepreneur, environmental guide, a developer and somebody who figures out learn how to remedy a number of issues concurrently in a means that he hopes advantages all.
Sooner or later whereas he was looking on the bay from his Emeryville workplace, Levine was struck by the steep unnatural riprap shoreline surrounding a lot of the bay that discourage wildlife from gathering there. He additionally thought in regards to the many tons of sediment that wanted to be dredged from the bay in order that huge ships may cross — and what he may do with that fill to encourage wildlife habitat elsewhere.
“I noticed that as a result of wildlife actually need extra shallow, variegated areas, and that if I may safely use dredged sediment to create these, I may present an financial answer for the ports, that are dropping billions of dollars of potential income as a result of they couldn’t get the large ships in, and make extraordinary habitat on the similar time,” he mentioned.
Thus was born the Montezuma Wetlands Challenge in Solano County, a personal initiative begun within the early 2000s that addresses two issues: the historic lack of wetlands and the way one can responsibly get rid of tens of millions of cubic yards of sediments dredged yearly from San Francisco Bay Space ports, harbors and channels.
Previously one of the helpful habitats within the San Francisco Bay area, the Montezuma Wetlands, subsequent to Suisun Marsh close to Collinsville, have been diked for agricultural use within the late 1800s. It was not till late 2020 that the levees have been breached as a part of Levine’s 15-year mission to return the realm to its authentic wetlands, utilizing dredged fill from the bay to revive habitat.
“Typically issues are so troublesome that they’re typically solely solved should you can mix two or three issues collectively, and discover an built-in answer,” Levine, CEO of Montezuma Water LLC, mentioned.
Levine’s firm pioneered using dredged sediment to revive wetlands, now an more and more widespread methodology. And the brackish water habitat on the newly fashioned Montezuma Wetlands will help various species, together with smelt and small salmon, whereas the adjoining restored marsh shall be engaging to the salt marsh harvest mouse, Ridgeway’s rail and California black rail, that are listed as endangered, threatened or near-threatened.
Levine just lately talked about a few of his many initiatives and what one wants to reach a accountable means in at present’s enterprise world.
How did you get your begin?
For 3 years, I labored for the State Water High quality Management Board, the Regional Water High quality Management Board in Oakland, and for 2 and a half years, I used to be an incident commander for environmental emergencies. I dealt with a whole lot of issues. Then I labored on a number of the first Superfund websites within the area. I used to be a man they despatched down, and so I did a whole lot of engineering and determining learn how to remedy issues.
Why the deal with creating wetlands?
I believed why can’t I take that fill from initiatives and replenish a few of these areas and make them far more helpful ecologically? So I began on a quest to try this. And the way in which that I did it was I signed an engineering geologist to seek out me the perfect website within the Bay Space. I all the time prefer to staff individuals up with totally different backgrounds. … They got here again three weeks later and there was one website that was an order of magnitude higher than each different website of the complete Bay Space. And that that was the 4,000 acres of land that Santa Fe Southern Pacific Land Firm owned in Solano County. … We thought if we may restore this by placing the dredged sediment right here and putting it in a sample the place it might depart a landform, while you’re performed it might seem like a tidal wetland.
In 2020, we turned our first 550 acres plus one other 100 acres of buffer to the tides. And the success of the restoration is unprecedented and how briskly it was. We thought it might take 4 years for vegetation to return again, and it took 9 months.
You additionally plan to make use of some dredging fill on your proposed Jersey Island mission in East Contra Costa County, too. How would you do this?
In Contra Costa, there’s actually not an incredible place to go to the seashore and your youngsters could possibly be unsupervised for security causes. … With a county with temperatures which can be 100, 105 levels, how helpful wouldn't it be to the group to have a spot like that the place you may go to, like an enormous seashore? And, as a enterprise, we’re actually skilled at shifting massive portions of fabric like sand and fill and all that. Decker Island is true subsequent door; we’d in all probability pump it (the sand) over.
What are a number of the different proposals for the six-acre island at the moment owned by Ironhouse Sanitary District? We thought it could possibly be a very good inexperienced vitality (wind and photo voltaic) technology location, which is one among Contra Costa County’s targets, to generate native inexperienced vitality.
Then we noticed some habitat restoration potential, significantly for the large garter snake. That’s an endangered species that you just run into it while you’re doing levee initiatives, that are vital initiatives if you wish to save these islands … and so to have mitigation already out there, it might simply be an enormous profit.
We have been simply struggling to determine, although, learn how to substitute the cattle grazing, which the (Ironhouse Sanitary) district was dropping cash on, operating their grazing operation. … It retains the weeds down, so there's a profit to grazing. However cattle grazing, I don’t know. In order that’s after we thought what about if we grazed wild animals and gave the individuals round right here like essentially the most attention-grabbing factor to take a look at that you already know, they ever have a look at on a weekly foundation? I imply, I might come out right here as soon as every week to see it, to look over an enormous 500-acre space and see herds of unique animals.
How are your Jersey Island proposals seen by environmentalists? Nothing would thrill us greater than to accomplice with the Sierra Membership and Greenbelt Alliance and different teams. That might assist us make it higher … and I feel form of marry group values and environmental values. It doesn’t should all the time be one or the opposite. And so, I feel there’s methods of doing it, but it surely does require individuals to return out of their corners and other people get out of their packing containers and be keen to think about issues that perhaps they hadn’t thought they'd earlier than.
What upcoming enterprise initiatives do you could have that can assist the setting? We’ve launched two new enterprises over the past 12 months, one with a aim to sequester a number of million tons of carbon dioxide yearly. And the second is to attempt to advance the development of a desalination plant for the Bay Space as an extra type of water safety.
What’s totally different about the way you method issues today? It’s a unique world now. You already know, the outdated options are simply not working. We have now to suppose somewhat bit in a different way. And I feel, primarily based on issues I’ve performed, that should you did that, you already know, perhaps you may do some actually wonderful issues. __________________________________________________________________________JIM LEVINE
Place: CEO Montezuma Water; civil and environmental engineer
Training: UC Berkeley grasp’s diploma in engineering
Age: 67
Residence: Berkeley
FIVE THINGS TO KNOW ABOUT JIM LEVINE
He performs guitar in a rock band referred to as CRISIS.
He used to eat ice cream each evening. Now, he’s changed it with small doses of darkish chocolate.
He nonetheless runs hills in Berkeley harking back to his highschool monitor observe days.
He competed in martial arts for 25 years.
His first work expertise was with a small landscaping enterprise, which helped put him by way of school.