Encounter with a ship and subsidence

While in the Delta last month, the Peak Water studio had an encounter with a ship. A big ship, as the two-story headquarters building at Windmill Cove Marina (at far right of image below) gives us a scale to judge “big” by:

A big ship, about 60 miles as the crow flies from the Golden Gate, on the San Joaquin River. Seeing it was a real treat for the studio. The experience really drove home important questions about the diversity of ways that the Delta already works. And the issues that it faces, of course…

This ship is its way to the inland Port of Stockton, exporter of rice, grains, sulfur, and petroleum coke, importer of cement, animal feed, liquid bulk fertilizer, and (yikes) anhydrous ammonia.

Although flagged in Panama, the ship may have come from somewhere across the Pacific. Ships like this have made major contributions to the types of invasive species that now call the Delta home. Dumping their ballast water when getting ready to take on cargo, the ships also dump the inhabitants of far away watery places.

Globalization is about the migration of all things.

The ship also clearly indicates another reason to be engaged with, fascinated by, concerned about, and in the DNP’s opinion, loyal to, this Delta place. Look at how much higher the ship rides in the water than is the land on the adjacent Wright Tract:

What the image shows is a dead flat landscape. What it doesn’t show is the land-side slope of the Wright Tract levee, and the something on the order of thirty-foot elevation difference it absorbs. A detail of the above, just to help the viewer imagine what is going on here:

From the bottom of the polder its seems as if boats go by, floating in the air.