Mandeville Claims

This image describes the physical consequences of several types of reclamation.

For the big land development companies who built the first levees, the limitations of technology in late 19th century reclamation led to decisions to not build levees around points of nascent land, but instead simply to cut them off. These ‘cut off’ islands, or channel islands, comprise the closest thing to a ‘natural’ landscape in the Delta.

Other events to be seen in this image are several sloughs that were filled in by the reclamation company (potentially an illegal act), and a scour pond from a levee failure.