If you didn’t know better, you might think there was nothing left to fight about along Tomales Bay, the flooded, foggy rift in the land that halfway separates the Point Reyes peninsula from the mainland of Marin County north of San Francisco.

Since 1972, when the county decided to use all its powers to keep this landscape rural, the outward scene has hardly changed. The same herds graze the same gentle hills above the same wandering roads. The same small communities adhere to the waterside. The same mouthwatering local oysters grace local barbecues.

But those who know this place and its people see not a settled peace but a tenuous balance of forces. They see a landscape still at risk, a community split on several lines. The latest of many battles—about pollution of bay waters by livestock and human waste—has set neighbor against neighbor in a way not seen for years; yet it may open the way to a more secure future.

In May 1998, 171 people suffered nausea and diarrhea after eating raw oysters harvested in Tomales Bay. Because the gastrointestinal bug involved is carried by humans only, livestock, the usual pollution suspect, couldn’t be blamed. The case proved that every group in the watershed, not just the ranchers, had to do its part to protect bay water quality. The crisis led to a new conversation about how best to guard and restore this landscape in years to come.

John Hart is the author of Farming on the Edge: Saving Family Farms in Marin County, California (University of California Press, 1991) and several other books on environmental issues.

The full text of this article is in the Autumn issue of Coast & Ocean magazine. To subscribe to Coast & Ocean, click here. Subscribe