Fighting to Save San Francisco Bay

If California ever becomes a prosperous country, this bay will be the center of its prosperity. The abundance of wood and water, the extreme fertility of its shores, the excellence of its climate, which is as near to being perfect as any in the world, and its facilities for navigation, all fit it for a place of great importance.

When Richard Henry Dana wrote these observations in his diary at Christmastime, 1835, San Francisco Bay was 700 square miles of pristine majesty. In the years since, the building of the "place of great importance" has exacted its toll. Piers, salt ponds, rotting ship hulks, human detritus and a land-hungry urban complex have reduced that water area to 420 square miles. This week forces were mobilizing in San Francisco to end the shrinkage.

The save-the-bay movement came to a head when a corporation called West-bay Community Associates announced plans to develop a residential-commercial-recreational complex along 27 miles of presently submerged bayshore south of San Francisco. Three days later, the state's Bay Conservation and Development Commission released another plan that was a clean-cut challenge to the Westbay proposal. The only bay filling that might henceforth be justified, it said, would be for projects "providing substantial public benefits" that could not be gained otherwise--port terminals, airport extensions and "close-to-home" recreation facilities like marinas, beaches, parks and fishing piers.

Despite the timing, the B.C.D.C. report was not specifically aimed at the Westbay development, which in fact is considerably more enlightened than some others that have been proposed. The commission's mandate, set in 1965, grew out of a 1959 Army Engineers report that predicted an eventual filling of at least another 248 square miles of bay, in effect reducing much of it to little more than a deep-channel San Francisco river.

As it is, the bay is still relatively unpolluted; massive garbage disposal in it has been halted. It is still, thanks to its tributaries, a major spawning habitat for Pacific salmon, and its mud flats are a vital source of food to many fish and ocean birds. Its waters provide the Bay Area with a natural year-round air-conditioning system. All this would be destroyed if the bay were diminished. The bay's would-be protectors also point out that the nine surrounding counties encompass more than 7,000 square miles, largely undeveloped, and have no real need to expand inwardly into the bay.

Still, B.C.D.C.'s report represents no victory. The commission's temporary tenure is up next year, and the California state legislature must act on its recommendations if the bay is to be saved. In the meantime, San Franciscans are hoping that the legislators have read Richard Henry Dana.

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