The Richardson Bay Regional Agency accepted nearly $5 million in two grants for underwater debris removal and eelgrass restoration at its Sept. 10 board meeting, The Ark reported Wednesday, Sept. 16.

The board approved both awards on its consent calendar in a 3-0 vote at Tiburon Town Hall, with Marin County Supervisor Stephanie Moulton-Peters absent. The larger award, $3,051,000, comes from the EPA's San Francisco Bay Water Quality Improvement Fund and was signed Aug. 13; it funds removal of at least 700 tons of marine debris, restoration of six acres of eelgrass, and a survey and mapping of the bay floor, with the EPA reimbursing the agency through May 31, 2029. A $200,000 share goes to Sausalito, a former member agency, to measure results and handle outreach. The second award, $1.9 million from the San Francisco Bay Restoration Authority, funds a further six acres of eelgrass restoration inside the Eelgrass Protection Zone, about two years of monitoring, and one or two paid internships for Marin students.

The funding will expand the agency's restoration work in the waterway between Mill Valley, Tiburon and Belvedere. It comes months after crews finished clearing all illegally anchored vessels from the bay's 700-acre Eelgrass Protection Zone, a multi-year effort that began in 2022 when more than 100 vessels occupied the area.

The scale of what sank to the bottom became clear during a weeklong cleanup in 2025. Divers working just one acre of the former anchoring area hauled out more than two tons of debris, Latitude 38 reported. The haul included two small boats, a shopping cart, marine batteries, outboard motors, a PlayStation, an electric foot massager, a microwave and an office chair.

"We continue to see great progress in our mission to protect and restore Richardson Bay so that everyone in our community can enjoy this amazing waterway," Executive Director Brad Gross said in April when the agency announced the protection zone had been cleared.

The new grants build on a $2.8 million EPA grant awarded in March 2024 that funded the first phase of replanting. Researchers from San Francisco State University's Estuary and Ocean Science Center in Tiburon, the Richardson Bay Audubon Center and Sanctuary, the firm Merkel & Associates and Coastal Policy Solutions began putting eelgrass back in the water in spring 2024, according to Audubon California.

As of January 2026, the agency had planted 14.5 acres of eelgrass.

Its long-term goal is 75 acres. The agency's 2026 strategic plan calls for removing an estimated 3,000 pounds of additional debris and restoring at least 20 more acres between 2027 and 2029. The plan envisions using autonomous underwater seed-planting vehicles if grant funding allows.

An underwater mapping robot was already charting the bay's eelgrass meadows as of Aug. 4, when the agency said it hoped future grant funding would pay for robotic planting.

Richardson Bay holds one of the last healthy eelgrass sanctuaries in the San Francisco Bay Area, with the most genetic diversity and the second-largest eelgrass bed in the region, according to a Bay Nature report cited by Audubon California. A 2021 restoration plan identified anchor-out vessels as a major threat. Dragging anchors churn up sediments, block light and physically break apart the underwater meadows.

The Richardson Bay Audubon Sanctuary closes to all watercraft Oct. 1 through March 31 each year during peak herring activity and shorebird migration along the Pacific Flyway.