EBB & FLOW

Our Urban Waterfronts—
for Work, Play,
and Learning

With this issue, Coast & Ocean begins a series of articles on urban waterfronts, first looking at Oakland. Waterfronts are near and dear to my heart, as my earliest childhood memories are of living near the waterfront in southwest Washington D.C.

Most people probably don’t know that Washington even has a waterfront, and admittedly it isn’t (or wasn’t) much. When I was a kid you could buy crabs off “crab boats” tied up at docks on the Potomac River. I put that in quotation marks because in fact the crabs were delivered to the boats by truck. Nevertheless, it was always a thrill to go down to the river’s edge, smell the heady mixture of brackish water, diesel fumes, and dead fish, and haggle over a bushel of crabs with a crusty old salt standing on a fishing boat as it rocked gently at its pier.

Most cities have been built around existing ports. Washington grew near Georgetown, at the highest navigable point on the Potomac. Almost every coastal California city (as well as many inland cities) has some kind of waterfront, if not a working port. From Crescent City Harbor near the Oregon border to the Port of Eureka in Humboldt Bay, to Noyo Harbor in Mendocino County, through all the harbors large and small in the Bay Area, past Morro Bay, Port Hueneme, Los Angeles, Long Beach, and San Diego, almost all of the state’s coastal cities have a maritime past, if not a present. Before the transcontinental railroad was built, more people immigrated to California by sea than any other mode.

More than 95 percent of U.S. overseas trade moves through the nation’s seaports, and California has some of the largest deep-draft ports in the nation. In 2002, 32 percent of U.S. trade, in value of goods, went through California’s seaports, mostly through Los Angeles and Long Beach, according to the Public Policy Institute of California. By 2020, the industry expects national maritime trade volumes to double. California’s export economy has long been oriented toward the Pacific Rim, a rapidly growing market.

Unfortunately, we have not done well by our urban waterfronts in California, neither those that are smoothly functioning economic engines nor those that are derelict reminders of a bygone economy. Historically we have tended to wall them off from the cities they gave birth to. Sacramento’s waterfront, lovingly restored, is separated from the rest of the city by 10 lanes of Interstate 5 crossable only through a spooky underground parking structure. Oakland’s waterfront is separated from the rest of the city by Interstate 880/980. Long Beach managed to put a great deal of development between itself and its namesake harbor. (After living in California for 15 years I was surprised to learn that there really was a beach there!)

Fortunately there is a lot of good happening at our waterfronts, and the Coastal Conservancy has been a part of this movement since 1981, when the Urban Waterfront Program was added to our charter. As detailed elsewhere in this magazine, Oakland’s waterfront has changed markedly (and I think for the better) since I moved to that city over 10 years ago. The Conservancy helped the City of Eureka spruce up its working port with a sturdy and well-designed boardwalk. With a little help from the Loma Prieta earthquake, San Francisco has done a magnificent job of redesigning the Embarcadero area, and the Conservancy has contributed with a number of visitor-serving amenities and artistic flourishes. Some years before that, we helped rebuild the fishing fleet facilities in San Francisco to keep at least that part of the waterfront a working port. Conservancy staff are currently engaged in the second phase of an effort to redesign Port of Los Angeles facilities in San Pedro, reconnecting that community with its own waterfront and with the rest of Los Angeles. We have also contributed to maintaining commercial fishing businesses at some smaller ports like Morro Bay and Bodega Bay.

Our mandate includes helping visitor-serving institutions bring people to the water, so we have supported maritime museums up- and downcoast, and helped bring tall ships to a number of ports. It is very important to us, however, that we do more than just help our waterfronts be nice places to visit. We are vitally concerned with maintaining the working character of waterfronts wherever possible, and that is one of the reasons we have completed a number of projects over the years in support of commercial fishing.

California is a maritime state with a rich maritime history and heritage, and a vibrant, economically diverse maritime present. Bad planning and historical accidents have severed our connection to this past and have often made it difficult or unpleasant for the average citizen to connect with this heritage, or even to get to the water’s edge. We are working hard to correct this, because as anyone with a little experience will tell you, it’s a bad idea to turn your back on the ocean.

Sam Schuchat is the executive officer of the Coastal Conservancy.

Coastal Conservancy News

In 2004 the Coastal Conservancy gave new support for over 125 projects along the coast and around San Francisco Bay, allocating $135 million, leveraged by almost $215 million of non-State funding. Projects included acquisition of more than 30,000 acres to be protected for recreation, habitat, scenic lands, and farmland, along with protection through conservation easements of another 83,000 acres.

Major accomplishments included: significant progress toward the completion of the California Coastal Trail; establishment of the Coastal Ocean Currents Monitoring Program; removal of barriers to fish migration; wetland protection and restoration, including planning for the vast San Francisco South Bay Salt Ponds; and major land acquisitions, including the Hearst Ranch.

In December, the Coastal Conservancy authorized funding for more than 30 projects, most funded from bond acts approved by voters in 2000 and 2002.

KELP PLANTING TO EXPAND

Kelp forests provide habitat to many juvenile fish species, but since the 1960s, the Southern California Bight’s kelp forrests have diminished by 75 percent, according to surveys. Santa Monica BayKeeper and the California CoastKeeper Alliance have taken remedial action during the past three years by organizing teams of staff and volunteer divers to plant kelp seedlings along reefs. Some of these seedlings were raised by schoolchildren in classrooms.

So far, about 3,000 square feet of new forest have been planted. Plans call for planting 12,000 more square feet during the next three years in Santa Monica Bay and elsewhere in the Bight. The Conservancy approved $400,000 to Santa Monica BayKeeper and $200,000 to the California CoastKeeper Alliance for this second phase of the restoration.

SAN DIEGO RANCH TO BE PROTECTED

When preserving open space to shelter vulnerable plant and animal species, it makes sense to look at the ecosystem rather than at small, isolated parcels. The City of San Diego is taking just such an approach with its Multiple Species Conservation Plan (MSCP), which aims to protect open space and habitat in the city and on its periphery.

The largest property available within the area the MSCP seeks to protect is the Monte Vista Ranch, more than 4,400 acres of coastal sage scrub, riparian habitat, grassland, and woods in the upper San Diego River watershed. The Coastal Conservancy approved $9.7 million (of funds granted the agency by the Wildlife Conservation Board for Natural Communities Conservation Planning projects) to the Nature Conservancy to acquire the property, place an agricultural conservation easement on 390 acres that will continue as a working ranch, and keep the rest, about 4,058 acres, as habitat. The remaining $7.7 million of the $17.4 million purchase price will come from the Nature Conservancy, San Diego County, and grant sources including Propositions 12 and 50.

PLANS FOR BALLONA WETLANDS

Restoration plans are being launched for the Ballona Wetlands in Los Angeles. The Conservancy approved disbursement of $750,000 to consultants and technical experts it will select to do technical studies, planning, data collection, and other analysis associated with the planning process. Restoration alternatives, as well as funding sources for the work proposed, are expected to be developed by mid-2006. The 607-acre wetland remnant of once-vast coastal marshes has been dramatically altered by oil drilling, creek channelization, and the dumping of soil dredged to construct the Marina del Rey Lagoon.

ACCESS FOR ALL IN MALIBU

For years, a number of dedicated access easements in Malibu have remained closed because no public agency could be found to assume responsibility for managing them. Therefore, in 2000 the Conservancy turned to a private nonprofit organization, Access for All, which has agreed to take responsibility for easements in Malibu, currently numbering at least 20. The Conservancy approved $35,000 to the organization to enable it to complete various tasks for four easments to beaches, including design of signs and development of a new type of gate that would automatically lock itself at night and unlock itself in the morning. The gate is being developed and tested in cooperation with students at Pierce College in Los Angeles.

FUNDS FOR MALIBU LAGOON PLANS

A decades-long effort to bring Malibu Lagoon back to health received another boost with the Conservancy’s approval of $300,000 to Heal the Bay for a final restoration plan and site plans. When restoration efforts began in 1983, there wasn’t much left of the lagoon at the mouth of Malibu Creek. Most of it had been filled and two baseball fields were built there. Since then, several major projects have restored tidal flows and habitats, and revegetated the shores with native plants. The new restoration efforts could begin as early as 2006.

PORT HUENEME PIER IMPROVEMENTS

The Hueneme Beach Fishing Pier, in Port Hueneme Beach Park, Ventura County, hosts fishermen, tourists, the annual Beach Festival and, unfortunately, teredos (aka shipworms), bivalve mollusks which use their shells to tunnel into wood. After a series of storms seriously damaged some of the pier’s 188 piles, workers discovered that teredos had bored into the wood and weakened them. The City of Port Hueneme decided that all piles should be replaced and, with funding help from the Wildlife Conservation Board, has already replaced 89. The Conservancy approved $200,000 to the City to replace another 38.

BUILDING THE BAY RIDGE TRAIL

When completed, the Bay Area Ridge Trail will connect nine counties and more than 100 communities on a 500-mile continuous path along the ridgetops surrounding San Francisco Bay, opening a door to the beautiful greenbelt that surrounds California’s second-largest urban area. The Bay Area Ridge Trail Council has already opened 267 miles of trail, and will be able to open much more with the $1.2 million the Conservancy recently approved. The monies will be used to complete planning and related activities necessary to acquire and develop land for new trail segments.

POZZI RANCH TO STAY IN FAMILY HANDS

Development pressures in the rural areas around San Francisco Bay have been turning farms into subdivisions for years, with immense amounts of money being offered to take the land out of production. The 1,125-acre Pozzi Ranch, on the eastern shore of Tomales Bay in Marin County, would fetch a handsome price. But the Pozzis, a fourth-generation farming family, and the Marin Agricultural Land Trust (MALT) are bent on keeping the land in agriculture. The Pozzis, who currently lease the property, are in the process of trying to buy it. The Conservancy approved $1 million to MALT to purchase an agricultural conservation easement on the property so the ranch will continue as a part of the working landscape. It will be managed to minimize erosion and, most importantly, development will be limited to improving the two structures already on the property.

RANCHERS PROTECT ESTERO AMERICANO

Estero Americano, an estuary on the Sonoma–Marin County border, supports migratory and resident birds, threatened salmonids, and other wildlife. Eight ranchers along the Estero are working with the Gold Ridge Resource Conservation District (RCD) to improve habitat by restoring riparian corridors, installing fences to keep cattle out of sensitive areas, and implementing water and soil conservation practices. In 2002 the Conservancy provided funding to allow the RCD to begin creating a comprehensive plan for the Estero and to find ranchers willing to allow and maintain these habitat enhancements. Now this effort will expand to watershed level, with the help of $650,000 approved to implement conservation plans for eight square miles. The RCD continues to expand the project, with six more ranchers due to join in 2005.

GIVING ELK HERDS ROOM TO GROW

When the Wildlife Conservation Board (WCB) purchases the Lauffs Ranch in northeastern Napa County, it will be increasing contiguous protected lands to over 40,000 acres. According to the Department of Fish and Game, this will allow herds of native tule elk to roam freely, and many species to be protected and managed at the ecosystem level.
The 12,575-acre ranch is located within both the Blue Ridge–Berryessa Natural Area and the Knoxville–Cedar Rough Conservation Area. The area is remote and large enough to provide a wide variety of habitats—grasslands, oak woodlands, serpentine chaparral, and riparian zones—for numerous wildlife species including bald eagles and other raptors, mountain lions, and black bears. The land will also be part of a linked wildlife corridor from Lake Berryessa north into Lake and Colusa Counties. Humans will be able to enjoy the land as well, with public access for hunting, hiking, and mountain biking planned.

The property will be acquired by the WCB with $1.5 million in Conservancy money and will be managed by the Department of Fish and Game.

ACCESS TO NAVARRO POINT

One of the most spectacular pieces of the Mendocino County coastline will be opened to the public by next summer with the help of $109,000 in Conservancy funding.

On Navarro Point, at the mouth of the Navarro River in southern Mendocino County, 55-acres of grassland slope down to steep bluffs. The Point was identified as a prime coastal site for public access over 20 years ago, and was purchased by the Mendocino Land Trust in 1999 with $1.1 million from the Conservancy. The land trust has since been preparing plans and applying for permits for signs, benches, a parking area, and other improvements. A blufftop trail will add another 4,500 feet to the Coastal Trail.

POMO BLUFFS PARK ON TRACK

A scenic chunk of land overlooking Noyo Bay in Fort Bragg is almost ready to be transformed into Pomo Bluffs Park. The 20-acre property, purchased by the City of Fort Bragg with over $2 million received from Caltrans and the Conservancy in 2001, will get a 47-space parking lot, pedestrian and bike trails, a restroom, and interpretive signs. Native plants will be restored on much of the site. The Conservancy approved $600,000 for these improvements.

The park will provide another piece of the Coastal Trail, and will give visitors a place to relax and watch fishing boats move in and out of Noyo Harbor. Some may even see gray whales.

SALMONID RESTORATION
CONFERENCE COMING UP

The Salmonid Restoration Federation will hold the 23rd Annual Salmonid Restoration Conference, “Thinking Like a Watershed: From the Headwaters to the Sea,” March 30–April 2 in Fortuna. Offerings include workshops, tours of restoration sites, visits to educational programs, technical panels, and opportunities to meet a wide variety of people working together for the sake of salmonids.

Full-day workshops are scheduled on water conservation planning and implementation, instream flow requirements, estuary restoration, and channel morphology. Field tours include Headwaters Forest: Salmon Creek to Tidewater, restoration projects in Humboldt Bay, and along Freshwater Creek, urban streams, and Salmon in the Classroom.

For more information, see www.calsalmon.org or call (707) 923-7501.