Californians love the coast. We love its spectacular beauty, we love to hike over its bluffs and dunes, kick back on its sandy beaches, and play in the surf. All this is central to our heritage and identity as Californians.

One of the Coastal Conservancy’s core purposes is to help people get to the shore and enjoy its varied pleasures. For 25 years we’ve worked with local communities to build trails, buy parklands, open beaches, construct parking lots and restrooms, preserve scenic open space, and reduce water pollution. Right now, with funding from Propositions 12 and 40—the parks and resources bond acts passed by the State’s voters in 2000 and 2002—we’re working harder than ever to open more of the coast to the public.

A key Conservancy goal is completion of the California Coastal Trail, slated to run along the coast’s entire 1,100-mile length. This trail is now more than half completed, with segments open in every coastal county. We are working with Coastwalk, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the trail’s completion, with the Coastal Commission, the State Parks Department, and many other public agencies and citizens’ organizations to prepare routes and plans for all unfinished sections. The plan will be completed in early 2003 and submitted to the Legislature.

The Conservancy is also a key partner in building the San Francisco Bay Trail and the Bay Area Ridge Trail, which will one day encircle the state’s largest estuary, running through the diversity of Bay Area environments—urban centers, ports, beaches, marshes, grasslands, and mountain forests. A little over half of each trail is now open. The San Francisco Bay Trail Project and the Bay Area Ridge Trail Council are overseeing the concentric trails’ planning and construction, and volunteers from every community around the Bay have swung pickaxes and lifted shovels, often working with the California, East Bay, Marin County, and San Francisco Conservation Corps and other organizations to put the trail in place.

Even in places where new access is a tough proposition, we have success stories to tell. In Malibu this year, the Conservancy funded the purchase of Lechuza Beach, the first new public beach in that city in 18 years. A year earlier, and after a 10-year effort, we helped open the first public stairway to Malibu’s Escondido Beach.

There is no time to lose. California’s population is growing fast, and with it the demand for access to beaches and coastal parklands. Recognizing this, within the last year the cities of Laguna Beach and Oceanside agreed to accept and open several coastal accessways within their respective boundaries—easements originally made available to the State as conditions of permits granted by the Coastal Commission. The Conservancy is prepared to accept scores of similar access easements in other areas to ensure that the public does not lose opportunities to reach the beach. We will work with local communities to turn accepted easements into open pathways.

The obstacles blocking coastal access projects are many and varied. Some are physical: where steep and eroding ocean bluffs rise above rocky shores and surging surf, nature itself makes beach access impossible. Some are financial: buying beaches and building trails is expensive. California voters have demonstrated their willingness to put their tax dollars to work for this purpose, so we’re moving ahead. Other obstacles are legal and political, raised by beachfront landowners who want the public to stay away, and local governments who side with them. The Conservancy will continue grinding away at this opposition.

What’s in the future? The Conservancy intends to open new beaches and pathways wherever we can. We will continue to improve existing accessways so that they can be used by wheelchair riders and others with impaired mobility, and are more enjoyable to the public in general. We will work with our partners to complete the Coastal Trail, the San Francisco Bay Trail, and the Bay Area Ridge Trail—not tomorrow but piece by piece—and to build other trails that connect to these systems. We will continue to foster the efforts of local communities to expand public access to California’s shoreline.

The coast belongs to the people of California. It’s only right that they should be able to get to it and enjoy it at its best.

Sam Schuchat is the executive officer of the Coastal Conservancy.

Recent Coastal Conservancy Actions

The Coastal Conservancy met in Huntington Beach on September 26 and approved projects in all coastal regions and on San Francisco Bay. Much of the funding for these projects was made available through Propositions 12 and 40, the parks and resources bond acts passed by voters in 2000 and 2002.

Among projects approved and funded are these:

Black Diamond Mines Preserve

California’s largest coal field lies near Suisun Strait in Contra Costa County. In the last half of the 19th century and the early years of the 20th, 13 mines were active here, supplying industry and home needs in the San Francisco Bay Area. The mines were closed after higher-quality coal became available from Washington State and oil began to supplant coal as an industrial power source. The 5,717-acre Black Diamond Mines Preserve was created in 1974. Managed by the East Bay Regional Park District, it allows today’s Californians to look at a chapter of the region’s history.

This preserve includes the Hazel-Atlas Mine, which produced silica sand for glass making and sand for steel casting from the mid-1920s to the mid-1940s. It also includes the Rose Hill Cemetery, where Protestant mining families are buried.

To enable the East Bay Regional Park District to make neededimprovements, the Coastal Conservancy approved $522,050 in Proposition 12 funds. Of the total, $492,500 will be used to stabilize mines for public safety, to add to museum exhibits, and to increase visitor-serving capacity.

The remainder, $29,550, will be used to restore damaged graves and gravesites, and to survey the cemetery with ground-penetrating radar to identify undiscovered gravesites and historical artifacts. The Park District is contributing $20,000.

Martinez Waterfront

The city of Martinez, in Contra Costa County, hopes to reinvigorate its waterfront by building new boat-docking facilities, restoring existing facilities, and making other improvements in keeping with its Waterfront Marina Master Plan. It also intends to upgrade trails and bike paths to connect to regional trail systems, including the San Francisco Bay Trail. First, however, the City must protect its public plaza and marina from flooding during storms and high tides. To help pay for this project, the Coastal Conservancy approved $250,000 in Proposition 12 funds for the construction of a 433-foot shoreline retaining wall. Construction is expected to begin in spring 2003.

Bay Area Ridge Trail

To enable the Bay Area Ridge Trail Council to dedicate 11 miles of trail in Santa Clara County, the Conservancy authorized the Bay Area Ridge Trail Council to use $175,000 in Conservancy funds for the purchase of two properties in the Sierra Azul Open Space Preserve southeast of Los Gatos.

The Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District, which owns and manages the preserve, will purchase the two properties, adding $175,000 of its own funds to the Conservancy’s funds, which were made available through Proposition 12.

The two privately owned properties total 64 acres and are surrounded by preserve lands. Both are on the Ridge Trail, which has been open informally along this stretch but has not been officially dedicated because permanent public access could not be guaranteed. The Conservancy previously granted over $3 million from Proposition 12 funds to the Ridge Trail Council, subject to Conservancy approval of their use for specific projects.

The two parcels offer views of Mt. Umunhum, Mt. El Sombroso, Lexington Reservoir, the Bear Creek Redwoods, and other open space lands. They contain evergreen forest, scrub oak, and chaparral that are habitats for mountain lions, coyotes, deer, and bobcats. The Sierra Azul Open Space Preserve contains almost 15,500 acres. Limited access to its Mt. Umunhum portion is available from Mt. Umunhum Road. Hikers are asked to contact the open space district for more information before visiting.

More than 230 miles of the proposed 400-mile Bay Area Ridge Trail are now open to the public. The nonprofit Bay Area Ridge Trail Council promotes the trail’s completion and organizes a network of volunteers to help plan, design, construct, and maintain segments of the trail. Contact the Council at (414) 561-2595 or www.ridgetrail.org. The Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District acquires and preserves open space lands to create a regional greenbelt. Through district purchases, the scenic backdrop of midpeninsula communities is being permanently preserved. Contact the District at (650) 691-1200 or www.openspace.org.

San Francisco Bay Trail

The Conservancy authorized the Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG) to disburse $88,000 of previously authorized funds for three San Francisco Bay Trail projects:

• $60,000 for an alignment feasibility study in Corte Madera, Marin County, to be matched by $15,000 from the Town of Corte Madera
• printing 5,000 copies of trail maps in six-map sets; these maps were updated with prior Conservancy funding and made consistent with maps in the Conservancy’s San Francisco Bay Shoreline Guide
• $3,000 for 300 signs to indicate new Bay Trail segments. With approval of these projects, about $1 million remains of the $7.3-million block grant the Conservancy authorized to ABAG in December 2000 for Bay Trail projects.

Steelhead Habitat in Santa Barbara County

The southern California population of steelhead trout, a federally listed endangered species, will benefit from habitat improvements to be undertaken on Mission Creek, Carpinteria Creek, and the Sisquoc River with the help of $240,000 approved by the Conservancy in September. The funding was provided by Propositions 12 and 40. The Community Environmental Council (CEC) will use the money to prepare plans and designs for habitat improvements in each of the three waterways.

On Mission Creek the CEC will work with the Mission Creek Restoration Partnership to design the restoration of a 1,200-foot reach on the grounds of the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History. The stream channel has retained much of its natural character here, but habitat is compromised by stormwater runoff from the museum’s parking lots and by non-native vegetation in creekside woodlands. Exotic plants will be replaced with natives, and erosion and runoff controls and educational exhibits will be installed. This work will also improve water quality downstream.

On Carpinteria Creek the CEC will work with the Carpinteria Creek Watershed Coalition. This creek was recently identified as offering the highest potential for steelhead recovery of all creeks between Point Conception and the Ventura County line. A road crossing that severely impedes fish passage will be removed, exotic plants will be replaced with natives, and erosion controls will be installed. The project site is on property owned by the Cate School and contains a century-old avocado orchard. The restoration will demonstrate techniques that can be used in other orchard properties in the county.

On the Sisquoc River the CEC will study habitat conditions and barriers to fish passage in the watershed, which drains into the Santa Maria River in northern Santa Barbara County. The primary purpose of the study is to identify fish-passage barriers for their possible removal. The Sisquoc River is one of the least altered steelhead streams in southern California, and its upper watershed contains high-quality spawning and rearing habitat. Removing barriers to fish migration would unite the upper and lower reaches of the river, greatly expanding available steelhead habitat.

The CEC is a community-based environmental organization active in Santa Barbara County since 1970. It is engaged in a wide range of environmental health programs, including watershed restoration, environmental education, trash recycling, community gardens, and sustainable energy.

Heisler Park, Laguna Beach

Heisler park, which extends for half a mile atop seacliffs and down to beaches in the City of Laguna Beach, has been seriously damaged by bluff erosion. The Conservancy approved $225,000 in Proposition 40 funds to the city to design bluff protection improvements, expand visitor facilities, and improve pathways for use by people with impaired mobility. The city is matching the Conservancy’s grant equally.

Other News

Projects funded along the coast in September also include:

• To plan and develop projects throughout the North Coast Region, $95,000 to the Conservation Fund
• To assess steelhead trout habitat in the Santa Monica Mountains and to develop a strategic plan to implement the Santa Monica Bay Plan, $200,000 to California Trout, Inc.
• For the Wetland Recovery Project Small Grants Program, $30,000 to Environment Now
• To conduct an invasive and exotic fish-reduction program in the Cleveland National Forest in San Diego County, $50,000 to Trout Unlimited.

San Francisco Bay projects include:

• To build overlooks and public access improvements at three street ends along the Bay shoreline, $60,000 to the City of Richmond
• To acquire 1.64 acres along Baxter Creek in Contra Costa County, $350,000 to the City of El Cerrito
• For a study to identify means of providing passage for steelhead in lower Alameda Creek, Alameda County, $100,000 to the Center for Ecological Management and Restoration
• For planning related to San Francisco Bay salt pond restoration, $100,000 to the Conservation Fund.