Water chemistry data showed that the artificially inundated open water ponds in the lower reaches of the wetlands were hypersaline and, without intervention, were on a trajectory of increasing salinity. The inundation of the remaining saltmarsh mosaic upstream in Phase 1 had occurred as a result of more recent impoundment against downstream berms. This exposed these habitats to the poor water quality in the open water systems downstream and resulted in large-scale die-off of permanently inundated saltmarsh vegetation.