Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
Three women who saved the bay in the 1960s: Esther Gulick, Sylvia McGlaughlin,
and Kay Kerr. The full story of how they did it, and the fascinating story of how San
Francisco Bay came into being and then was settled, developed, polluted, and fi-
nally restored by its human populace, is beautifully presented in the 2009 docu-
mentary film
Saving the Bay
by Ron Blatman. (Save the Bay)
Society, and other groups, the fledgling Save San Francisco Bay Associa-
tion sent out hundreds of letters calling attention to wanton development
in the bay. Most of the people who received the mailing sent back $1 to
join, giving the organization a base. Their reach soon extended beyond
Berkeley, with membership swelling to 18,000 by 1970, and into the halls
and offices of the state capitol. Locals heard the call to save the bay on the
radio, read about it in newspapers and on bumper stickers, and talked
about it around family dinner tables and in grocery store parking lots.
“With surprising rapidity, the movement to save the bay became a
mass political uprising . . . a wildly popular cause, and hundreds of people
(including me), were converted to environmentalism in the process,”
writes Richard Walker in his history of the greening of the region called
The Country in the City
. “Nothing was more essential to the Bay Area's
green culture. It all goes through Save the Bay.”
The intense lobbying gave Save the Bay two immensely powerful allies.
Seeing the popularity of the cause, state Senator Eugene McAteer and
Richmond Assemblyman Nicolas Petris agreed to propose legislation cre-
ating a single regional agency to regulate bay fill and environmental qual-
ity. Some supporters sent baggies of sand to their state legislators to make
the point. Others crowded into buses to throng hearings in the state capi-
tol. Their presence turned the tide in many battles. For example, when
