The Myth of the Breeze

The beginnings of something unmanageably large

The wind­ing hill­side roads of Suisun Bay lead to the marshy edge of the Cal­i­for­nia Delta and a small pub­lic fish­ing pier lit­tered with rem­nants of fish­ing hooks, bait, and snagged lines. On any given night, a hand­ful of fish­er­men pop­u­late this pier, lines cast into the slough that car­ries water from the Delta into the San Fran­cisco Bay. Whether as a respite from the nearby sub­ur­ban Fair­field or a search for the evening’s din­ner, men (and occa­sion­ally women) gather reg­u­larly at this point to con­verse into the evening and wait patiently for a bite at the end of the line. Just upstream of the pier, a drainage pipe approx­i­mately three feet in diam­e­ter dumps waters into the slough. The water stream­ing from the pipe pro­duces a slightly yel­low froth that lingers around the shore and clings to the pier’s wooden sup­port beams. The pol­lu­tant being dis­pelled into these waters is appar­ent, easy to see. But it is not the only con­t­a­m­i­nant present in this water. At a nearby boat launch facil­ity, advi­sory signs posted by the Cal­i­for­nia Depart­ment of Pub­lic Health warn fish­er­men of the dan­gers of eat­ing fish con­t­a­m­i­nated with mercury—a heavy metal present in the these waters as legacy of the state’s gold rush. Despite the signs of warn­ing in prox­im­ity to the fish­ing pier, these fish­ers con­tinue to gather and, as is often the case, con­tinue to con­sume the fish they catch from these waters. This loca­tion is one of per­haps dozens through­out the Delta where fish­ers gather in the name of both sport and subsistence.

So goes the first para­graph of my the­sis pro­posal. The­sis. Yikes.