North Bay Report

Most of San Francisco Bay is surprisingly shallow, a habitat that is home to a great diversity of undersea life—at least in those areas where the native ecosystems are healthy. A new report, prepared by the Coastal Conservancy, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Adminstration and other partenrs,  has mapped those areas, and identified others as good candidates for restoration projects.

Even if most of the inner portions of San Francisco Bay are relatively shallow, mapping the Bay's full perimeter included a considerable variety or underwater terrain, explains NOAA's Natalie Cosentino-Manning. The deep and rocky entrace to the Bay is markedly different from the inner expanses where the subtidal zones.

The mapping project found a good concentration of healthy eelgrass and oyster beds along the eastern shoreline of Marin County, adds Cosentino-Manning, as well as numerous additional areas that are good candidates for restoration work.

Read more and listen the full story from Bruce Robinson's North Bay Report here.

National security, economic vitality and partisan politics. Immigration reform is one issue that touches them all. But that doesn't mean there's much agreement about how reform should proceed.

The debate over immigration reform is dominated by concerns about Latinos from Mexico and other nations moving northward into the United States. This, says U.C. Davis Law School Dean, Kevin R. Johnson, gives the issue inescapable racial overtones.

Enforcement of immigration laws by local police is a touchy subject in many jurisdictions, and some, such as San Francisco has gone so far as to declare themselves "sanctuary" cities, where only federal authorities can make arrests or initiate deportations. In other places, notes Kevin R. Johnson, police employ a similar practice informally.

Kevin R. Johnson will offer his "Overview on Immigration" at noon on Wednesday, Feb. 9, in Room 3001 of the Schulz Library on the Sonoma State campus. This is the kick-off event for the university's serires of immigration-themed events and activities, Immigration: Humanity on the Move.

Listen to the full report here.

She set out to be an activist, not a martyr, and she tells her story, posthumously, in her own words, in the play, I Am Rachel Corrie.

This debut presentation of I Am Rachel Corrie in Sonoma County was inspired by both political and practical considerations, says director Lois Pearlman.

The single performance of I Am Rachel Corrie will take place at 3 pm Sunday at theGlaser Center in Santa Rosa. Traditional Arabic songs performed by by Aswat ("Voices," pictured below) and folk dances by Juthoor ("Roots") also part of the program, which is a benefit for the Northcoast Coalition for Palestine Support.

Read follow-up stories and listen to the report here.

Editor's note: This story was reported and produced by KRCB, and written for Rohnert Park Patch with the permission of KRCB News Director Bruce Robinson.