SCALE TN MILES ♦ TOMALES Tomales ♦ PETALUMA Point CYPRESS GROVE PRESERVE i f \ AUDUBON CANTON RANCH . (Afi/fertcn Point INVERNESS ♦ “ PO IN T REYES' ytcasio Reservoir STATION ' 4 NICASIO ■> ♦ OLEMA LAGUNITAS K ent Lake AUDUBON -v-; CANYON \SANCH BOLINAS ij PART THREE TOMALES BAY The Tomales Bay watershed covers about 228 square miles and drains about two-fifths of Marin County into the Pacific Ocean at Bodega Bay through twelve-mile-long Tomales Bay. The Bay is fed partly by Lagunitas, Nicasio, and Walker Creeks, which have been dammed to create six small wilderness lakes that supply drinking water to ten of the eleven cities in Marin. Lagunitas Creek drains the steep northern slope of Mt. Tamalpais and creates the Olema freshwater marsh, a natural filter. Public ownership of the 21,500- acre Marin Municipal Water District’s watershed protects both the main sources of drinking water and an extensive wildlife habitat. The battles to prevent subdivisions within the unfinished Point Reyes National Seashore and along the east shore of Tomales Bay triggered California s first major coastal and water supply revolutions. Note the location of Cypress Grove Preserve. 96 SAVING THE MARIN-SONOMA COAST CHAPTER EIGHT The Tide Turns for Marin No elected office in California has such a profound effect as Super­ visor on the quality of life in Marin, Sonoma, or any county. — State Senator Peter Behr -w-ust as The Kent Island Coup was concluding in 1967, securing the south- I ern flank of the National Seashore, we had to begin fighting for Tomales 1 Bay, which protected the Seashore’s entry twenty miles to the north. As land acquisition chairman for Audubon Canyon Ranch, I assessed our chances as nearly hopeless. Here’s why: Tomales Bay is ten times the size of Bolinas Lagoon and thousands of acres of tidelands had been subdivided into underwater lots and sold by the state years before. Nearly all the shore­ line was privately owned except for one of Caroline Livermore’s projects, Tomales Bay State Park on the west side. Even Hog and Duck Islands were privately owned. In addition, the area was swarming with developers and the supervisors were pressing hard for a freeway, this time from San Rafael to Tomales Bay and on up the coast into Sonoma County. Tomales Bay is a long narrow bay about twelve miles long and barely one and one-half miles wide, shallow at its peaceful southern end, and deep near its dangerous oceanic mouth, where huge waves crash over its sandbar, over­ Subdivisions, malls, turning boats and drowning unwary fishermen each year. The bay averages high schools, and free­ twelve feet in depth and covers nine thousand acres, including tidelands. ways were projected for The dreaded San Andreas Fault goes right down its center, creating the gran­ the east shore of Tomales Bay (distant) in the ite cliffs and bishop pine forests of the Point Reyes Peninsula, which the 1906 1967 West Marin earthquake jolted northward an astonishing twenty-two feet near the town General Plan, elimi­ of Olema. On the east side of the bay, the chewed up continental plate hides nating one of the state’s landslides. Also, as we emphasized over and over, there is hardly any available most productive dairy water. Wells can go down hundreds of feet without hitting a drop. regions. This photo was taken from the Inverness The hills are kept green all year by “ye stinking fogge,” as Sir Francis Ridge, which is now part Drake called it, creating some of the finest dairyland in the state. Butter, o f the Point Reyes cream, milk, and teleme cheese from a dozen large Tomales Bay dairy farms National Seashore. THE TIDE TURNS FOR MARIN 97 have been prized for a century. So why we asked the supervisors, kill this golden goose by paving it over? Why not leave it alone? The bay was historic: it had seen English, Spanish, Russian, and Mexican explorers. The remnants of a railroad track between Sausalito and Cazadero near the Russian River, built by Chinese labor, follows the eastern shore, cre­ ating brackish lagoons that are home to mallard, pin­ tail, and widgeon. This railroad once brought vacationers to the woodsy village of Inverness and the dairy center of Point Reyes Station, and brought clammers to Cypress Grove midway up the bay. In 1967 the population of the Tomales basin was only five thousand. Why not keep it that way to protect the dairy industry and attractiveness to tourists? Although it had no stunning colony of egrets for the Ranch to defend, Tomales Bay was far richer in wildlife and had its own stark, windswept beauty. Only a few Marin Unfortunately, though, it was best know n for its annual shark derby in which residents were aware that the superlative sportsmen caught, killed, and threw back sharks and California bat rays that wildlife habitat o f used the bay as a nursery. Also, the bay boasted tens of thousands of winter­ Tomales Bay was in ing ducks and geese, which attracted large numbers of hunters from outside grave danger in 1967 the county. At the annual “coot shoot,” hundreds of coots (small, harmless, from the freeways and black waterbirds) were needlessly killed and left on the marsh. The eco­ urban development nomic center for many farmers on Tomales Bay was Petaluma in Sonoma proposed by the West Marin General Plan. County, and m any of its visitors came from the Sacramento Valley. Few peo­ ple in Marin then knew or cared about foggy Tomales Bay. By 1967 the struggle for Tomales Bay had begun in earnest. The east shore’s gentle pasturelands overlooking the bay were ideal for development. Three of the five county supervisors and a sophisticated cabal of wealthy speculators were alarmed by the success of Audubon Canyon Ranch at defeating growth around the Bolinas Lagoon. Mary Summers prepared a master plan for the east side of Tomales Bay, entitled the West Marin General Plan, which the supervisors adopted by a three-to-two vote. It was far more grandiose than the one she’d done for the Bolinas basin six years before. The more colorful the map, we soon learned, the worse the concept. This plan allowed for a new city along Tomales Bay, with a population of some 150,000 people, more than half the total count for the county. Flousing tracts and miles of freeway would urbanize the hills overlooking Tomales Bay. The water supply for this new city would come by pipeline from the Russian River, which would be swollen with water from the proposed Warm 98 SAVING THE MARIN-SONOMA COAST RANCH Proposed HEALDSBURG ♦, Sonoma-Marin Russian River The Sonoma-Marin Aqueducts A queduct, proposed in the 1960s, would Coastal Existing JENNER have provided water Aqueduct Aqueducts (never built) SEBASTOPOL fo r developm ent all along H ighw ay 101. Connecting :o t a t i In addition, a connect­ Aqueduct BODEGA BAY" SONOMA ing aqueduct was to be (never built) built to supply a coastal Sonoma-Marin aqueduct, which would Aqueduct provide water for devel­ (defeated by Marin NOVATO opm ent all along an voters in 1971; expanded H ighw ay 1 approved in 1992 POINT on the Marin-Sonoma but never built) KEYES STATION coast. A huge nuclear Existing power plant was SANJ^AFAl Pipeline planned in 1962for from Novato to Bodega Bay. Explosive Corte Madera growth would follow, MARIN MUNICIPAL WATTRDIS1HICI and some thought for­ tunes could be made. Springs Dam. Such large development would be used to further justify plans for the dam. Love That Benthos Tomales Bay was relatively unpolluted in 1967 except for leaching from septic tanks, the new West Marin Sanitary Landfill, and from the heavy manure runoff during winter rains. Our biggest ace in the hole was that the Pacific Marine Station monitored the bay mud, “the benthos.” Under the direction of Professor Edmund Smith, they identified thirty-six of the three hundred or more species of tiny bottom creatures that formed the start of the food web. Smith was my hero for persuading the Bay Area Regional Water Quality Control Board, of which he was a member, to prohibit sewage wastewater discharge into Tomales Bay or the ocean as being possibly lethal to these organisms. This was bad news for the subdividers: they might have to pump sewage out of the Tomales basin at a prohibitive cost. Although Tomales Bay was deemed pristine, the biology of the upper THE TIDE TURNS FOR MARIN 99 LEGEND RESIDENTIAL CATEGORIES A A B LOW DENSITY CATEGORIES C & D MODERATE TO LOW DENSITY CATEGORY F LAGOON RESIDENTIAL COMMERCIAL SHOPPING CENTERS HISTORIC COMMERCIAL SERVICE COM COMMERCIAL RECREATION COMMUNITY FACILITIES NEIGHBORHOOD PARKS CEMETERY SCHOOLS ( T ) ELEMENTARY Q JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL © HIGH SCHOOL © JUNIOR COLLEGE REGIONAL PARKS-CONSERVATION © BEACH PARK © BOATING PARK WAYSIDE - VIE W P O IN T © GEOLOGICAL SITE □ NATIONAL AND STATE PARKS □ FISH AND WILDLIFE PRESERVES ALTERNATES : 0 WATER RECREATION 0 MULTIPLE RESIDENTIAL 0 LAGOON RESIDENTIAL 0 NEIGHBORHOOD COMMERCIAL CIRCULATION STATE SCENIC HIGHW AY COLLECTOR ROAD PARKWAY 100 SAVING THE MARIN-SONOMA COAST NT GENERAL ♦ PLAN 10, 1 9 6 7 (B/S RES. N O . 9 3 6 6 ) ; % AND AMENDED Sfc MARCH 4, 1 969 (B/S RES. NO. 69 4 4) CONCEPTS OF 'Lul dlttl I'liv' THE PLAN ’LAN INDICATT- ONLY Tlir 5KRVON raoirc > IN Tlir , WIIO.-E ULTIN..TE FEASIBI- r STUDY BETWIIN Tlir 135,000 acros Wimdvillc OBJECTIVES OF THE PLAN GEOLOGY This absurd 1967 West M arin General Plan called for urban development for CALIFORNIA HIGHWAY (AUTHORIZED AS A FREEWAY TO RUN FROM I*.S.