Delta islands may become first casualties of warming

For 20 years, Jim Saathoff has built his private refuge from the urban hustle, making his home on an island in the vast freshwater delta that feeds into San Francisco Bay.

Water skiers ply the gray-green river within view of his front porch. A short walk from his home, he can cast off to fish for sturgeon, salmon and striped bass. His two children ran wild exploring the farm fields, marinas and hideaways of the fertile islands where the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers twine.

Saathoff's idyllic life may not last forever. By the time his 11-year-old grandson is ready to have children of his own, scientists predict the Delta's network of islands will be imperiled by the rising tides and mountain flood waters caused by global climate change.

Some islands sit 25 feet below sea level, kept dry onlyby an aging network of fragile levees that channel snowmelt from the Sierra and hold back tidal surges from the Bay.

Geologists say the 5,000 residents of the nation's lowest inhabited point near a coastline could be forced out, becoming the first climate change refugees in the United States.

"If global warming keeps up, in a few years this will be waterfront property," said Saathoff, 56, a steamfitter who has raised his house onto an iron platform 20 feet above ground. "We'll just be able to drive the boat up and dock right off the porch."

The majority of the U.S. population lives along a coastline. In the next 50 years, rising tides are expected to swallow islands in Chesapeake Bay, drown parts of the Louisiana coast and threaten the New York subway system, recent data from the U.S. Geological Survey shows.

But USGS scientists say the coastal effects of global warming may be felt first among the islands of California's Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.

more from the AP via the Alameda (CA) Times-Star