Suisun Bay
Suisun Bay is a shallow tidal estuary in northern California (a northeastern branch of San Francisco Bay). It stands at the confluence of the Sacramento River and the San Joaquin River and forms the entrance to an inverted river delta, the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. The largest marsh in California is Suisun Marsh, the tidal marsh land to the north. A northern extension of Suisun Bay is created by Grizzly Bay. Directly north of Contra Costa County is Suisun Bay.
The bay was named after the Suisunes, a Native American tribe in the area, in 1811. The term comes from the word Patwin.
The Carquinez Strait, which connects to San Pablo Bay, a northern extension of San Francisco Bay, drains Suisun Bay to the west. It is spanned in its middle by the Benicia-Martinez Bridge and at its eastern end by the California State Route 160 crossing (Antioch Bridge) between Antioch and Oakley, in addition to the main bridges on the Carquinez Strait.
From 1879 to 1930, the Central Pacific Railroad constructed a train ferry that operated between Benicia and Port Costa, California. When the nearby Martinez railroad bridge was completed in 1930, the Solano and Contra Costa ferry boats were withdrawn from service. The Sacramento Northern Railway, an electrified interurban line, crossed Suisun Bay with the Ramon, a train ferry propelled by distillates, from 1913 until 1954.
A petroleum pipeline owned by Kinder Morgan Energy Partners ruptured on April 28, 2004, initially recorded as spilling 1,500 barrels (264m3) of diesel fuel into the marshlands, but later revised to approximately 2,950 barrels. Kinder Morgan pleaded guilty to the maintenance of a corroded pipeline and paid $3 million in fines and compensation for failing to alert authorities immediately after the leak was found.
The bay is home to the Suisun Bay Reserve Fleet, also referred to as the Mothball or Ghost Flee, a U.S. set of Navy and merchant reserve ships, produced in the time following World War II. After recovering parts of a sunken Soviet submarine in the mid-1970s, the USNS Glomar Explorer was anchored here (see Project Azorian). In the 1990s, several ships were removed and sold for scrap. Plans to eradicate the mothball fleet in stages were revealed in 2010, with final withdrawal by 2017.
This amazing landmark in Martinez, California is located near some other must-see places of interest:
- John Muir House
- John Muir National Historic Site
- Martinez Gun Club
- Radke Martinez Regional Shoreline Park
- Mount Wanda
- Waterfront Park
- Hidden Lakes Park
- Rankin Park
All of these wonderful landmarks are located just a short distance from our location at 1261 Locust Street in Walnut Creek California! Stop by for a visit anytime!
