Point Buckler has been through a lot. Once a kitesurfing club for billionaires, complete with helipads and an astroturfed lounge, the 50-acre island in the northeastern reaches of the San Francisco Bay has been the subject of a bitter, decadelong fight over ownership. That fight saw accusations of a fraudulent government land grab and the arrest of its former owner, a onetime America’s Cup yachtsman. This week, the new proprietors tell SFGATE that the little island in the Suisun Marsh is a death trap — but they’re ready to save it.
About 15 miles south of Fairfield, Point Buckler Island sits in the vast, brackish wetlands where the San Francisco Bay meets the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. This stretch of tidal water shelters some of California’s most fragile species, including Delta smelt, green sturgeon and migrating Chinook salmon.
A Sicilian immigrant named Gaetano Seeno reportedly acquired the island around 1930. Over the following decades, levees were constructed to form duck ponds, and the island became a favored hunting spot. By the 1980s, however, the levees fell into disrepair, and tidal waters once again swept through the marsh. As the barriers eroded, the island shrank from about 50 to 39 acres.
In 2011, the island was bought by self-described “American entrepreneur” and yachtsman John Sweeney. The one-time sailing rival of Larry Ellison previously told SFGATE that after making millions in the dot-com boom selling advertising space on super yachts, he bought the land for $150,000 but didn’t have an immediate use for it…