Mission Bay: The Wetland That Became an Aquatic Park

Look out at the islands and lagoons of Mission Bay. The geometry you are seeing is entirely constructed. Before nineteen forty-four, none of it existed. What existed was Bahia Falsa: a shallow tidal marsh and estuary, one of the largest coastal wetland complexes in Southern California, where the Kumeyaay had fished from tule boats, harvested shellfish, and gathered reeds for construction for thousands of years. The San Diego River had historically emptied into this marsh, shifting its course between this basin and San Diego Bay to the south as the seasons changed.

In nineteen forty-four, a Chamber of Commerce committee examined the marsh and recommended that it be converted into a tourist and recreation destination. The plan was adopted. Over the following two decades, twenty-five million cubic yards of dredged sand and silt were used to obliterate the wetland. The marsh was filled, sculpted, and transformed into the island-and-lagoon geometry that exists today. Mission Bay Park, which officially holds the designation as the largest man-made aquatic park in the United States, opened in stages through the nineteen fifties. SeaWorld opened on the resulting fill land in nineteen sixty-four.

The ecological cost was permanent. One of Southern California's largest coastal wetland complexes was replaced by boat rentals and a theme park. The baseline of what was natural here has receded so completely from public memory that most visitors have no awareness they are floating, kayaking, and windsurfing on what was recently, in geological terms, a productive estuary.

The Kumeyaay called this Bahia Falsa before any Chamber of Commerce committee ever met. The name, which means False Bay in Spanish, was given by European sailors who found the shallow marsh unsuitable for navigation. It was not false. It was just not a harbor. What replaced it very much is.