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Coastal photos  on web create powerful conservation tool
by Lennie Roberts

Last fall, coastal activists were handed a  wonderful new tool by Ken and Gabrielle Adelman, a couple who live in  the tiny community of Corralitos in Monterey County and who have a great  passion for the coast.

Ken's success in dot-com startups has given him the time and resources  to devote his photography talents to coastal protection. His early efforts  involved taking aerial photographs that were used by environmental groups  to defeat the Hearst Corporation's proposal to build a golf course and  hotels on their oceanfront property near Hearst Castle in San Luis Obispo  County.

Building on this success, Ken purchased a four-seat Robinson R-44 helicopter  and set out - with Gabrielle at the controls - to photograph the entire  length of California's coast.

The results are spectacular. Since October, they have made more than 12,000  color photos of the California coast available on their website:
www.CaliforniaCoastline.org.

Navigating from a map or with latitude and longitude, users can select  any area of the state's coastline and - presto - a series of photos along  that section are displayed.

The website is a powerful tool that documents conditions along the coast  at a given point in time. Scientists are using the site to measure erosional  forces, beach conditions, vegetation changes, and development patterns.  Photo documentation from the website has already been used in several  enforcement actions by the Coastal Commission, including the illegal riprap  at the Ritz Carlton/Ocean Colony golf course.

Committee for Green Foothills is one of the many groups whose coastal  protection efforts have already benefited incredibly from Ken's website.  Because many areas along the shoreline are not visible or easily accessible  from inland areas, every photograph is worth its weight in gold as we  work to protect coastal resources, improve land stewardship, and ensure  that our public trust resources - beaches and waterways - are accessible  to all.

 

 

California's  coast:
Worth fighting for!
by Lennie Roberts

At a celebration of the coast held February  1 at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, activists from throughout California marked  the 30th anniversary of the passage of the Coastal Initiative, Proposition  20.

Despite the successes we celebrated, Herculean struggles over development  of California's coast are still with us, as evidenced by the recent Court  of Appeals decision that the Coastal Commission is unconstitutional, citing  the "4-4-4" appointment structure of Commissioners by the Senate  Rules Committee, Speaker of the Assembly, and the Governor.

The Commission has appealed this decision, and the Legislature has passed  a surgical "fix" which the Governor has signed. The central  issue identified by the Court is that of Commissioners serving entirely  at the will of their appointing bodies, since this places the Commission  at risk of undue influence over votes. Historically, some Commissioners  have been replaced in the middle of meetings by their appointing authority,  which has a chilling effect on their independence. Changing the law to  require four-year fixed terms for Commissioners will reduce this kind  of manipulation.

An ironic example of undue influence was the swift replacement of two  Commissioners who voted against the Devil's Slide Bypass back in 1985.  Caltrans and development-minded allies exerted raw political muscle to  overcome the Commission's unfavorable staff recommendation. An initial  vote of 7-5 to deny the coastal permit for the Bypass was overturned three  months later, after the offending two Commissioners were replaced. But  this story turns out better than most, as in the end, the passage of Measure  T trumped everything else, and in the spring of 2004, construction will  finally begin on the tunnel.

Looking back over the past 30 years, I feel incredibly privileged to have  been involved in this historic struggle. Proposition 20 and the 1976 California  Coastal Act, crafted by the Legislature, embody landmark concepts for  this country, and for California in particular. European countries for  years have recognized the importance of creating livable cities and preserving  their countryside. But our country's frontier mentality drove the sprawling  development that postwar America found irresistible. If development patterns  had continued as envisioned in the 1960 San Mateo County Master Plan,  there would literally be no "coast" as we know it left today.

Developers hastily vested their rights to build in 1972 by erecting a never-used concrete foundation on the bluff  where the Ritz Carlton now stands -- just as the Coastal Initiative was  being signed. Thanks to this aerial photo, image no. 13294 from Ken Adelman's  website (see related story in sidebar), we can now easily see these pillars  emerging from the eroding cliffs and the illegal blufftop rip-rap installed  in effors to prevent such erosion from continuing.

Indeed, Henry Doelger's vision for the Half Moon Bay area was to extend  Daly City and Pacifica's postwar housing patterns down the coast. The  coastside's gently rolling coastal terraces and fertile valley bottoms  were slated to be subsumed by housing, golf courses, and freeways. The  one "concrete" legacy of the Doelger Plan is the Ritz Carlton  Hotel at Ocean Colony in Half Moon Bay. This monstrous edifice can be  seen from miles away.

Despite the untiring efforts of people like Ollie Mayer, who travelled  to Florida in the early 1970s to dissuade Westinghouse Corporation officials  from building the golf courses and hotel, the Ritz Carlton is now a constant  reminder of what the coast would surely have become. The original hotel  foundation, erected hastily and too close to the crumbling bluffs in 1972  in order to "vest" the rights to build, is now emerging as the  cliffs erode. Whenever I see the slick color photo ads for the hotel featuring  the newly-exposed pillars of concrete as well as the illegal blufftop  rip-rap, I hear the strains of Debussy's "Sunken Cathedral."

If I had clairvoyance, I could imagine a future in which the Ritz Carlton  is slowly reclaimed by the victorious ocean. Fast forward a few decades  (or perhaps centuries), bring on a few El Nino storms coupled with perigean  tides, and this monstrous mistake will likely become a famous ruin.

It's ironic, but I have to thank the Ritz Carlton for waking people up  to the continuing need for vigilance and involvement to protect the coast.

We're already seeing the results of this increased vigilance. The old  plans of Doelger and Half Moon Bay Properties (the successor owners of  some 5,000 acres outside the urban boundary of the Mid-Coast and Half  Moon Bay) have been sunken by plans for open space.

What was once a series of large ranches - proposed in the early 1970's  to become 2200 condos, homes, and a golf course - is now McNee Ranch State  Park. Today's
Montara  State Beach would have been the private beach for the clubhouse near  where today's Outrigger (the former Chart House Restaurant) sits on the  bluff.

Further south and to the east of Half Moon Bay is what HMB Properties  called Cassinelli Ranch, now known by its more historic name, the Johnston  Ranch. These 862 acres were the battleground of Measure D, placed on the  ballot by its offshore developer-owners. Measure D sought to eliminate  the voter-approved protections for this property, so this prime farmland  could be covered with condos, a conference center, and a golf course.  In 1992, the San Mateo County voters rejected Measure D by an astounding  82% "no" vote.

And in environmentalists' most recent success in this region, the 4,000  acres known as
Rancho  Corral de Tierra are now slated for permanent protection, thanks to  private philanthropy and the untiring efforts of the Peninsula  Open Space Trust.

Thanks to 30 years of work to protect the coast, we can enjoy these and  other successes every day. The next time you look across those sweeping  views of natural open space, take a moment to visualize what would have  been there without the Coastal Act. But don't become complacent. This  place is worth fighting for, and the fight for the coast is never finished!


Published March 2003 in Green  Footnotes.
Page last updated November 6, 2003

 

 

      

Copyright 2001 Committee for Green Foothills

Photo by Ken  Adelman.