In 1988, a massive oil spill from the nearby Shell Refinery inundated the Carquinez Strait and downstream marshes, including McNabney Marsh. As a result of a settlement with a number of agencies, Shell Oil paid over $12 million into a Natural Resources Fund to restore, rehabilitate, and acquire the equivalent of the resources damaged by the spill, and the Shell Oil Spill Litigation Settlement Trustee Committee was created to manage this effort. In 1992, the California Department of Fish and Game established a technical advisory committee, later renamed the McNabney Marsh Management Advisory Committee, to coordinate landowner and regulatory activities within the Peyton Slough Marsh Complex. That year, the East Bay Regional Park District was asked to serve as the acquisition agent for the southern marsh and subsequently purchased 198 acres, including 46 acres of the southern marshland. The Mt. View Sanitary District had already acquired about 68 acres of the northern marsh in cooperation with the Department of Fish and Game and the Regional Water Quality Control Board, becoming the first public agency in the state to create a wetland to meet the effluent disposal requirements of the Regional Board. The Contra Costa County Mosquito and Vector Control District cooperates with the Management Advisory Committee to plan mosquito control in the marsh, and the Martinez Land Trust operates interpretive programs for local school children in the preserve under an agreement with the East Bay Regional Park District. Waterbird Regional Preserve became an example of an accident turned into an opportunity to jointly and cooperatively restore, enhance, and manage prime wildlife habitat in the public interest, and today the McNabney Marsh Management Advisory Committee works together as one unit to conserve and enhance the marsh and its wildlife resources.