Weird to see the word "Goleta" on the erBB, besides next to my username.
All I've got to say is that if humans are gonna put sewer lines right next to an active tidal estuary, they better be prepared for sh!t (pun intended) like this to happen.
The Goleta valley and slough have very interesting erosion and cultural history.
The Goleta slough as we know it today is a narrow, semi stagnant waterway that winds through the large marsh beside the airport. Not much to look at really, but believe it or not it was once a larg…
goletahistory.com
Here's what it looked like when the spanish first started arriving:
Here's a hybrid map showing where the water would lie on our modern city:
And then this happened: (taken from goletahistory.com)
"In late 1861, heavy rain started falling and didn’t stop, dumping inch after inch on the over grazed foothills surrounding Goleta. The rain continued for months in what would be known as the Great Flood of 1862, wreaking havoc throughout California. The over abundant rain caused rapid erosion and muddy water poured down through the creeks, dumping fourteen feet of silt into the slough.
Along with the sediment came uprooted trees and chaparral, colliding with the incoming ocean tide, and settling into the slough. After the first week of steady rain, the slough became a huge, shallow bay from Hope Ranch to the Devereux lagoon. The great lagoon that had been a safe haven for ships for centuries was turned into a shallow, mud bog in a very short period. It was never to be the same again."