An Underwater Fight Is Waged for the Health of

San Francisco Bay

Heidi Schumann for The New York Times

Christopher Scianni, a California state worker, diving to remove wakame from the bay.

By MALIA WOLLAN
Published: August 1, 2009

SAN FRANCISCO — Chela Zabin will not soon forget when she first glimpsed the golden brown tentacle of
the latest alien to settle in the fertile waters of San Francisco Bay.

Heidi Schumann for The New York Times

The broad-leaf kelp is used in miso soup.

“I had that moment of ‘Oh God, this is it, it’s here,’ ” said Dr. Zabin, a biologist with the Smithsonian
Environmental Research Center. “I was really hoping I was wrong.”
The tentacle in question was that of an Asian kelp, Undaria pinnatifida, a flavorful and healthful ingredient in
miso soup and an aggressive, costly intruder in waters from New Zealand to Monterey Bay.

The kelp, known as wakame (pronounced wa-KA-me), is on a list of “100 of the World’s Worst Invasive Alien
Species,” compiled by the Invasive Species Specialist Group. Since her discovery in May, Dr. Zabin and
colleagues have pulled up nearly 140 pounds of kelp attached to pilings and boats in the San Francisco Marina
alone.

Every year the damage wrought by aquatic invaders in the United States and the cost of controlling them is
estimated at $9 billion, according to a 2003 study by a Cornell University professor, David Pimentel, whose
research is considered the most comprehensive. The bill for controlling two closely-related invasive mussels —
the zebra and the quagga — in the Great Lakes alone is $30 million annually, says the United States Federal
Aquatic Nuisance Species Task Force.

Many scientists say that San Francisco Bay has more than 250 nonnative species, like European green crab,
Asian zooplankton and other creatures and plants that outcompete native species for food, space and sunlight.

“Here you’ve got a veritable smorgasbord of habitats from shallow and muddy to deep water,” said Lars
Anderson, a lead scientist with the United States Agriculture Department. The Oakland port ranks as the fourth
busiest in the nation, and ships bring in tiny hitchhikers from across the globe to take up residence in the bay.

Most invasive aquatic species arrive stuck to hulls or as stowaways in ballast water. Wakame first arrived at the
ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach in 2000, Dr. Zabin and other scientists said. A year later it had moved
south into Baja California and north as far as Monterey Bay, where scientists in scuba suits yanked it off boat
hulls and marina moorings.

“It’s just like gardening, you can pull out all the weeds you want, but there will always be that little dandelion
seed that will sprout and recolonize,” said Steve Lonhart, senior scientist at the Monterey Bay National Marine
Sanctuary. The kelp, which can grow an inch a day, could spread as far north as Canada before the water
becomes too cold to sustain it, Dr. Lonhart said.

Native to the Japan Sea, wakame has now spread to the Mediterranean and elsewhere along European
coastlines, and to New Zealand, Australia and Argentina, where the fetid smell of rotting kelp has kept
beachgoers from parts of the coast.

Wakame harms native kelp, mucks up marinas and the undersides of boats, and damages mariculture like oyster
farming.

Money to help eradicate invasive species is difficult to come by on both state and federal levels, particularly in a
state facing an unprecedented financial crisis and cuts to programs. “When there is a big wildfire, no one stops
and asks, ‘Who is going to pay for this?’ They just fight the fire,” Dr. Anderson said. “We don’t have that kind
of automatic response with invasive species.”

On weekends, Dr. Anderson trolls Tomales Bay, 50 miles north of here, in a sea kayak, looking for wakame’s
wide leaves.

John Finger is owner of Hog Island Oyster Farm, which has beds in 160 acres of Tomales Bay. His beds yield
2.5 million oysters per year, worth $6 million, Mr. Finger said. Of wakame’s approach, he said, “It seems
inevitable that it will show up here.”

Though wakame has not yet been spotted in the bay, Mr. Finger said he was pre-emptively training his staff on
how to identify and remove the kelp. “This is just another sign of how small the world is,” he said.
Back in San Francisco, Dr. Zabin and colleagues from nonprofit groups and state and federal agencies have
been pooling resources and volunteers, donning scuba and snorkeling equipment and filling black plastic trash
bags with the kelp.

But before trucking it to the landfill, Dr. Zabin plans to ship some to Texas. “I got an e-mail from a guy who
wants to use it to make biofuel,” Dr. Zabin said. “Maybe he could just come and vacuum it up.”