Hidden behind Chicken Ranch Beach is a marshy acre of state land, bisected by a channel of stagnant water and overgrown with invasive acacias. The channel is contaminated by a mysterious natural source and, during high tides and rains, it spills bacteria-tainted water onto the popular beach.
“I always call this the bomb crater of Inverness,” said Tom Gaman, chair of the Tomales Bay Watershed Council Foundation, gesturing to the distressed pocket of wetland.