Coast & Ocean SPRING 2000-2

Crissy Field embodies a visionary concept: a highly accessible place, inviting to people with diverse tastes and interests, which is also a model for ecological restoration within an urban environment. The process of creating this park has brought in hundreds of volunteers, not only those who already had an interest in environmental restoration but many others from this multicultural community who had seldom, if ever, been
to Crissy Field or other park sites within the GGNRA. The volunteers accomplished most of the labor-intensive and otherwise prohibitively expensive work of restoring native vegetation.

Before work on the park site could begin, the Army had to clean up contaminants left behind by 224 years of military use. That process took much longer than expected because of unanticipated problems, such as the discovery of unexploded ordnance, including a Civil War cannonball. Work stopped until munitions experts arrived and detonated the devices. Eventually, in a performance exquisitely choreographed by Glen Angell, the Parks Association’s project manager, and Brian Ullensvang, NPS environmental engineer, the Army moved out with its backhoes and, simultaneously, Parks Association contractors moved their backhoes in.

First, NPS contractors removed 50 buildings, including “temporary” World War II barracks, which were dismantled by hand to save and recycle the old-growth redwood used in their construction. Asphalt covering 40 acres was excavated, ground up, and reused in landscaping Crissy Field with hillocks and dunes. Along the shoreline, 15,000 tons of concrete and rock debris were removed to expand the beach. Storm drains and utility cables were dug up and relocated. Mason Street, which marks the southern boundary of the park, was realigned to accommodate the historic contours of the airfield. As that street was repaved, a bicycle lane and pedestrian path were added.

Before that, of course, there had been years of discussion, public meetings, and negotiation over the proposed design by landscape architects Hargreaves Associates of San Francisco. Among Crissy Field users who had to be accommodated and brought together—without causing controversy that might sink the project—were dog walkers, windsurfers, native plant advocates, historic preservationists, and neighbors wary of wetlands.

In the end, a plan emerged that was a masterpiece of diplomacy. It gave everyone something important without offending or depriving anyone else. Native plant advocates are pleased that all vegetation will be California endemics, and that fragile plants in the dunes will be protected by low fences.

Preservationists are pleased because the historic airfield is becoming a 28-acre meadow, with one native grass planted so as to outline the historic racetrack, the other to outline the airfield. New dunes surround it, and they’re not fenced.

Dog owners, a highly vocal and sometimes litigious group in San Francisco, were satisfied by a plan that establishes three kinds of zones: some where dogs will be allowed off leash under voice control, others where leashes will be required, and a third where no dogs will be permitted.

To accommodate windsurfers, the parking lot has been designed to provide a soft surface for setting up equipment and contoured with sand dunes to block the wind in a launching area.

The toughest conflict-resolution challenge, however, was posed by the tidal marsh. The very thought of such a wetland upset some people living nearby. They worried about mosquitoes, smells, and stagnant water. To assuage these concerns, some Marin County residents who live near restored marshes—in neighborhoods as affluent as the San Francisco Marina district—appeared at a public meeting to speak of the joys and benefits: opportunities to watch birds, the pleasure of seeing nature coming back. None complained about smells or mosquitoes.

Getting neighborhood support was only one of the challenges the marsh presented. The first wetland restoration in an urban landfill on the Bay, it was designed to be 20 acres in size and to fit between the historic airfield site and the East Beach recreation and open space improvements. (Hydrologists had recommended 30 acres as an adequate size; the Park Service’s plans call for eventual expansion.) At other restorations, dikes were breached and the tides were able to do the rest of the work, helping plants and other marsh life to become established in areas that were not so rigidly defined. Here a template had to be shaped, some 230,000 cubic yards of soil and rubble removed, and a 40-foot-wide channel dug to allow Bay water to flow in and out within strict parameters. The material removed was deposited on the site of the former airfield.

Finally the marsh template was in place. Because this wetland is very sandy and, unlike others restored on the Bay, lacks the silt strata that allow marsh vegetation to return with the tides, pickleweed stays low and a greater range of plants can take hold. A “plant palette” of some 60 species was selected, including some plants that had been extirpated from the region. The marsh was ceremonially opened to tidal action with a breaching of its channel to the Bay on November 9, 1999.

Today Crissy Field has an expanded beach with native plants in restored dunes. The new 500-spot parking lot resembles grassy dunes, with saltgrass growing in durable composition material. Facilities for windsurfers have been improved with an outdoor shower, picnic tables, and toilets. A bridge across the new marsh links two foot and bicycle paths, moving people easily between street and shore. The circulation pattern also channels foot traffic away from vegetation in sensitive areas.

The Golden Gate Promenade, part of the 400-mile Bay Trail, has been widened and resurfaced and is fully handicapped-accessible. It smoothly links Fort Point to Fort Mason, joins the national park to Marina Green, and accommodates an endless stream of people. Dog walkers, joggers, and bicyclists move harmoniously at their own pace, watching sailboats, windsurfers, and birds against sky and water, with the Golden Gate Bridge in the background. A lawn of native grasses will soon stretch over the old airfield, limning the former runways; sculpted hillocks and coves will provide grassy picnic areas and shelter from the wind. A picnic area and small amphitheater are sheltered in the West Bluffs, snug under the Golden Gate Bridge.

The work continues. A historic building overlooking the marsh is being gutted and converted into the Crissy Field Center, which will provide diverse multicultural programs, strengthening the partnership between the park and the urban communities it serves. Hands-on workshops, laboratories, and exhibits will focus on wetland ecology and other urban environmental issues. The Center will feature exhibits that tell the stories of Crissy Field.

What can other communities learn from this success story as they work to create parks on abandoned urban military or industrial sites? As Moore points out, there is only one Crissy Field, and it’s here. “When you bring people here, it takes their breath away.” But he adds: “When you invite the public into the vision, people help you to fulfill it—in a volunteer capacity, a financial capacity, and an advocacy capacity.”

“At first, when I’d tell people that a new tidal marsh would be built, few believed me,” said the Coastal Conservancy’s Crissy Field project manager, Marc Beyeler. “Now this early success is encouraging other waterfront communities.” The grand opening of Crissy Field and its Center is projected for spring 2001. The Park Service and the Parks Association are planning a weeklong celebration as a “thank you” to the community for its generous support.

Arlene Gemmill, an environmental economist, has been active in behalf of Crissy Field for five years. She has published two studies on the award-winning Toronto Waterfront Regeneration project.