A small but significant island on the fringes of San Francisco Bay is entering a new chapter after a long and checkered history, which includes stints as a rumored rum-running outpost and a kitesurfing club for Silicon Valley elite.
The 50-acre Point Buckler Island, an uninhabited land mass in Suisun Bay, is being restored to its natural, marshy state. The project follows the seizure of the property by local authorities over alleged unauthorized development and its subsequent sale through an auction to the nonprofit John Muir Land Trust.
The conservation group says the restoration work will help the island recover from the environmental degradation that’s plagued its past. Most notably, the construction of levees over the past century has left much of the island dry, which environmentalists say has harmed fish and birds that rely on wetlands for food and shelter at a critical juncture in their migrations…