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Concept
Laguna de Santa Rosa
Summary
The Laguna de Santa Rosa is a wetland complex that drains a watershed encompassing most of the Santa Rosa Plain in Sonoma County, California, United States.
The California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment has issued a safe eating advisory for any fish caught in Laguna de Santa Rosa due to elevated levels of mercury and PCBs. In addition, there is a notice of "do not eat" for black bass.
The Laguna, whose principal tributary streams rise on the southern slopes of the Sonoma and Mayacamas Mountains, is the largest tributary of Mark West Creek. The sinuous watercourse and associated wetlands form a significant floodplain during the heavy winter rains, capable of storing over of stormwater.
Beyond its hydrological significance, the Laguna is Sonoma County's richest area of wildlife habitat, and the most biologically diverse part of the county, having been called a "national treasure" for its ecological wealth. A number of rare and endangered species occur in the Laguna, including federally listed threatened and endangered anadromous salmonid species and three endangered plants that are endemic here. From about 1870 to 1990 water quality and biota deteriorated in the Laguna, due to intensification of urban development and associated agricultural encroachment into the floodplain. In the 1990s the trend began to reverse, but the watercourse is still listed as impaired under the federal Clean Water Act for sediment, nitrogen, phosphorus, temperature, mercury, and dissolved oxygen, rendering it the most impaired water body on the North Coast of California. Notwithstanding the large historical reduction in resource extent, the Laguna de Santa Rosa is presently the second-largest freshwater wetland in coastal Northern California and still habitat to over 200 species of birds, threatened and endangered salmonid species, bald and golden eagle, osprey, mountain lion, river otter, coyote, bobcat, mink, and gray fox.
Official source
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