In celebration of renewed access I have made a few trips to the Eden Landing Ecological reserve over the last week or so. It is fun to see the change underway thereabouts and to realize how much the landscape has, and will, evolve. One of the areas I visited was the newly refurbished levee separating Salt Pond E14 to the north from Salt Ponds E8x and E9 to the south. This area is in the middle of a large plain of former salt works located between Mt. Eden Creek (known as the cradle of the SF Bay salt industry) and Alameda Creek to its south. The new levee is a substantial project involving earth imported to the site (as opposed to the usual dredging).

The new connection between E8X and E9.

I photographed Salt Pond E8X about two years ago.

www.flickr.com/photos/kap_cris/sets/72157622526110202/

Since then it has been connected with Salt Pond E9, a salt pond that is kept filled with Bay water although without a tidal connection. The current landscape in these ponds has been transformed by the presence of this water and a large crop of Cyanobacteria that it supports. I am increasingly aware that these landscapes are constantly changing – what I photograph today may disappear altogether in the near future. There is a link to a Flickr set after the jump.

A 360-dgree panorama from above Salt Pond E9 – best viewed large.

The new levee is also quite evident in this set below as is the brownish red bottom of Salt Pond E14 to its north. It is fun to be out taking aerials at Eden Landing again. Here is the set of images from the afternoon session posted to Flickr:

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 17th, 2011 at 7:21 pm and is filed under kite aerial photography, trip reports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.