News
It stands as a monument to the days before supercomputing when engineers wearing pocket protectors had to be able to do math – serious math – in their heads and on the fly.
Tucked into a sprawling World War II-era shipbuilding warehouse in a corner of this North Bay town is the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' Bay Model.
The hydrologically precise scaled working replica of the entire San Francisco Bay and Sacramento Delta takes a first-time visitor's breath away – just as it has since it first opened in 1957.
Corps Ranger Linda Holm said the site was used as a research facility from 1958 through 2000 to measure and evaluate the freshwater and saltwater circulation characteristics of the bay, the Delta and its tributaries. While the hard science officially ended there in 2000, the corps decided to keep the site open.
Now more than 150,000 students of all ages annually tour the model for a chance to see the entire bay and Delta with one sweep of their eyes.
"It really never gets old," Holm said. "We have our visitors first sit and watch a short movie and then they walk out and look down over the model. Watching their reactions can just be priceless."
The model was approved and paid for by Congress in the early 1950s following a series of massive private-sector proposals on how best to dam up and manipulate the greater Bay-Delta Watershed. The model was designed to help officials better understand how the watershed worked and what would happen if some of the dams were built.
The 145,000-square-foot model is made up of 286 individually supported concrete slabs with adjustable screws.
All of the bay and Delta's most important features can be found – every river, creek, slough, ship channel and canal. Every major pier, slip, wharf, dike, bridge and breakwater is also represented.
Holm said the deepest part of the model is about 3 feet in the narrow undersea canyon that runs under the Golden Gate Bridge. Elsewhere, in some of the upstream sloughs and tributaries, only a trickle of water is present. All told, about 150,000 gallons circulate through the model at any one time, she said.
Although advanced computer software modeling has long replaced the slide rule-era facility, Holm said the site is still a favorite of TV reporters when oil spills on the real waterway occur. To help them – and their viewers – better visualize how a spill would spread, Holm sprays a bright pink nontoxic dye into the water.
"There, see how it's eddying?" Holm asks a visitor after spraying two or three squirts into the water out in front of a mini-Golden Gate Bridge. "You can see that we have an ebb tide, and if that was oil, it'd be headed out to sea."
Following the 2007 Cosco Busan fuel oil spill, Holm said, she was mobbed by TV crews looking for ways to better quantify the size and scale of the real spill.
The model is also designed to simulate the tide cycle as it occurs on the bay – only instead of taking 24 hours to complete, the model's system replicates the tidal patterns every 15 minutes or so, Holm said.
Although rangers like Holm lament that scientific or engineering work is no longer conducted at the site, they take comfort that the model remains an educational resource for the greater Bay Area.
"When I'm out showing schoolkids the model I sometimes feel like I'm Godzilla because of the scale," Holm said, mimicking the movements of the beloved Japanese movie monster. "We try to keep it fun. The object is for them to understand that the bay and the Delta are real living ecosystems and that only through understanding will come the need to preserve and protect."
The model's future appears bright. The Corps of Engineers was recently given $13.2 million in federal stimulus funds to install solar panels on the roof, make seismic structural improvements, remove asbestos and make general improvements to the model, the adjacent visitor's center and the exhibits.
To accommodate the renovation, the model will close today through May 31.
Tucked into a sprawling World War II-era shipbuilding warehouse in a corner of this North Bay town is the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' Bay Model.
The hydrologically precise scaled working replica of the entire San Francisco Bay and Sacramento Delta takes a first-time visitor's breath away – just as it has since it first opened in 1957.
Corps Ranger Linda Holm said the site was used as a research facility from 1958 through 2000 to measure and evaluate the freshwater and saltwater circulation characteristics of the bay, the Delta and its tributaries. While the hard science officially ended there in 2000, the corps decided to keep the site open.
Now more than 150,000 students of all ages annually tour the model for a chance to see the entire bay and Delta with one sweep of their eyes.
"It really never gets old," Holm said. "We have our visitors first sit and watch a short movie and then they walk out and look down over the model. Watching their reactions can just be priceless."
The model was approved and paid for by Congress in the early 1950s following a series of massive private-sector proposals on how best to dam up and manipulate the greater Bay-Delta Watershed. The model was designed to help officials better understand how the watershed worked and what would happen if some of the dams were built.
The 145,000-square-foot model is made up of 286 individually supported concrete slabs with adjustable screws.
All of the bay and Delta's most important features can be found – every river, creek, slough, ship channel and canal. Every major pier, slip, wharf, dike, bridge and breakwater is also represented.
Holm said the deepest part of the model is about 3 feet in the narrow undersea canyon that runs under the Golden Gate Bridge. Elsewhere, in some of the upstream sloughs and tributaries, only a trickle of water is present. All told, about 150,000 gallons circulate through the model at any one time, she said.
Although advanced computer software modeling has long replaced the slide rule-era facility, Holm said the site is still a favorite of TV reporters when oil spills on the real waterway occur. To help them – and their viewers – better visualize how a spill would spread, Holm sprays a bright pink nontoxic dye into the water.
"There, see how it's eddying?" Holm asks a visitor after spraying two or three squirts into the water out in front of a mini-Golden Gate Bridge. "You can see that we have an ebb tide, and if that was oil, it'd be headed out to sea."
Following the 2007 Cosco Busan fuel oil spill, Holm said, she was mobbed by TV crews looking for ways to better quantify the size and scale of the real spill.
The model is also designed to simulate the tide cycle as it occurs on the bay – only instead of taking 24 hours to complete, the model's system replicates the tidal patterns every 15 minutes or so, Holm said.
Although rangers like Holm lament that scientific or engineering work is no longer conducted at the site, they take comfort that the model remains an educational resource for the greater Bay Area.
"When I'm out showing schoolkids the model I sometimes feel like I'm Godzilla because of the scale," Holm said, mimicking the movements of the beloved Japanese movie monster. "We try to keep it fun. The object is for them to understand that the bay and the Delta are real living ecosystems and that only through understanding will come the need to preserve and protect."
The model's future appears bright. The Corps of Engineers was recently given $13.2 million in federal stimulus funds to install solar panels on the roof, make seismic structural improvements, remove asbestos and make general improvements to the model, the adjacent visitor's center and the exhibits.
To accommodate the renovation, the model will close today through May 31.
