Are children being exposed to toxic mud in the marsh?
No. The activities of children and adult volunteers assisting in plant restoration – including transplanting sprouts and weeding – at Stege Marsh are closely monitored by the campus Office of Environment, Health & Safety (EH&S) to ensure a safe and productive educational experience. In 2003, the University entered into a collaborative effort with The Watershed Project, an independent, local nonprofit educational organization focused on the San Francisco Bay estuary, to provide high quality, field-based education and research programs for UC Berkeley students, K-12 students from traditionally under-served segments of the local community, and community partners (such as Kids for the Bay, Earth Team, Save the Bay, Friends of the Estuary and the East Bay Regional Park District). While working in Western Stege Marsh, children have been restricted to working in imported clean soils and Bay mud in an area known as the ecotone (the transitional zone between the marsh and upland grasslands) or
