Zmudowski State Beach also features the Pajaro River estuary, where a nature preserve exists. An
estuary is quite simply a body of water formed where freshwater from rivers and streams flows into the ocean, mixing with the seawater. Estuaries and tidal wetland systems are some of the most productive and adaptive of Earth’s ecosystems. This area surrounding the beach is a tidal
wetland, but back 10,000 years ago it was not. The rising sea levels drowned the valley. Thousands of years later, sediment deposition transformed this area into an estuary. The transformation of the land into wetland and
marsh actually began after the
California Gold Rush. When the Americans arrived, they cut down many trees to clear the land, and sediment continued to transform the wetland. Between 1870 and 1956, many levees were constructed within the Zmudowski Beach Region and near the Pajaro Estuary. The area, mostly salt marsh, decreased by 66% due to the
levees. However, the benefit of salt marsh loss was the increase of four habitat types. When the early twentieth century came, more than 90 salt marshes were altered into habitats that man made ponds and marshes containing fresh water. In the mid-twentieth century the salt marshes continued to decline and were replaced with unvegetated mudflat. By the late 1950s, almost all the salt marshes left were drained and used for agriculture. ==2014 closure proposal==