Greetings Friend,

The spring winds are in full force in coastal West Marin, a time of transition with the change of the season. Transition is a wonderful metaphor for this month’s email update, as we are currently welcoming new team members and interns into our fold, preparing to launch new programs, and getting ready for our busy summer community science Marine Protected Area (MPA) Watch training kick off. 

New Faces
Thanks to the generosity of our community of supporters last year, we raised more than $100k in honor of our 50th Anniversary. A portion of this funding was dedicated to staff investments and I am pleased to welcome two new team members to the EAC family. Dan Maher has joined our team as our first Communications Director, and Grace Milstein, who originally joined our team as an intern in the summer of 2020 will be working as an employee with EAC this summer as our Communications Associate. 

Our program team leaders, Ashley and Leslie, are onboarding their crew of summer interns. Ashley, EAC’s Legal and Policy Director, will supervise two Legal and Policy interns, Allison Pritchard and Lauren Richards, who will be working on a wide range of legal and policy projects related to safeguarding our coast and ocean and land-use and development projects. Leslie, EAC’s Program Director, will be overseeing three Coastal Advocates, Rachel Mueller, Eli Hanft, and Julian Durante, who will be assisting with the administration of our MPA Watch program and providing outreach and education with the Duxbury Docent Program. 

Gratitude
We have just said goodbye to two of our spring Legal and Policy interns, Madison MacLeod and Rachel Clyde, who helped us tremendously through April 2022 including work on the Countywide Plan Housing Update, 30x30, impacts of climate change, our Healthy Tomales Bay campaign, and with the Point Reyes Birding and Nature Festival. Rachel and Madison provided oral public comments, drafted legal memos, and helped with EAC’s communications. We will miss you both!

I am also deeply thankful to everyone who helped to bring our first in-person Point Reyes Birding and Nature Festival after a two year hiatus due to the pandemic. This includes all of our attendees, volunteers, planning committee, staff, board of directors, and all of the guides who helped make the event a great success! It was fantastic to be back out in the field enjoying the spring migration with more than 350 people participating in our field events, online events, and two events on the green outside of our office for our environmental day and youth Sunday Fun Day event in partnership with Amigos Alados. The Festival is an important part of EAC’s mission as it helps to provide critical unrestricted funding that allows us to protect the lands, waters, and biodiversity of coastal West Marin. 

Our Spring Pop Up Office Display features information about the Pacific Flyway and Conservation will be open through June 4th at 65 Third Street, Suite 12, Point Reyes Station, CA 94956 Fridays and Saturdays from 12:00 pm - 4:00 pm. Stop by to say Hi to the EAC team, to see some of Carlos Porrata's beautiful photographs, and to learn about how you can help birds in your backyard! Carlos has also generously donated metal prints to EAC that are for sale, all funds raised from the sale of the prints directly benefit our work. Thank you Carlos!

On the Horizon
We are currently working on our summer and fall engagement and advocacy campaigns that includes MPA Watch trainings; our Summer Pop Up office display that will feature Marine Protected Areas; mission moments to celebrate our 50th anniversary; and critical programmatic work to protect the lands, waters, and biodiversity of coastal West Marin. I have included some updates on our active campaigns and program work below. If you have any questions about our current work not featured in this update, don't be shy! Stop by the office, give us a ring, or send me an email.

Thank you for your continued support of our work, everything we do at EAC is made possible by the direct support of our membership community to protect the places we love in coastal West Marin.

In gratitude,

P.S. We are almost finished uploading our online virtual Festival videos for viewing. If you purchased a video pass, stay tuned for more information next week on how you can access those videos to watch through December 31st. 

P.P.S. Our work is made possible due to the generosity of our membership community. Please consider making a gift today to help support our work by joining, renewing, or making a donation to EAC!

MISSION

To protect and sustain the unique lands, waters, and biodiversity of West Marin. 
We achieve this goal through advocacy, education and engagement opportunities.

VISION

Our work strives to provide long-term protection and conservation of the unique ecosystems and rural communities of West Marin, and serves as a foundation of environmental protection for future generations.

Foodware Ordinance Passed
Morgan Patton

After waiting for more than two years, the Marin County Board of Supervisors passed the Reusable Foodware Ordinance that will require restaurants in unincorporated Marin County to replace single-use plastic foodware containers with reusable versions or fiber-based fully compostable single-use options. The ordinance was up for first consideration in March 2020, but was delayed due to the uncertainty of the pandemic. 

Here at EAC, we were thrilled to sponsor two young activists, Viola Seda and Reese Patton, who met at the end of 3rd grade and were concerned about plastic and the harm it causes the environment, including our oceans and direct impacts to species.

The girls started out with a no more plastic straws campaign, where they visited local businesses in West Marin to request replacement of single-use plastics and provide education on fiber-based compostables, rather than the corn-based compostable products that were in widespread use and distribution that cannot be composted. They also spoke to their classrooms and met with Supervisor Dennis Rodoni multiple times to talk about banning single-use plastics. 

You can learn more about the girls and their advocacy journey by reading the webpage and blog posts that they created on the EAC website to further their cause.

Learn More about their Campaign

A-60 Zoning Threatened
for Housing Development

Morgan Patton

In one of EAC’s earliest campaigns, we joined forces with a diverse coalition to push back against the infamous 1960s Marin Countywide Plan that would have paved and subdivided our coast. If that plan had moved forward, Marin County would be a very different place today. 

Fortunately, our local communities were successful in changing political leadership in the County that resulted in the County’s adoption of a precedent-setting ecological study, Can the Last Place Last? That was the basis for the updated Countywide Plan in 1973 and subsequent regional Community Plans that would guide land-use and community planning decisions for the next 50 years. 

One important milestone to slow the push of urban sprawl was the creation of ‘A-60 zoning,’ a land use regulation that limits residential development to one house per sixty acres of agricultural land. A-60 zoning saved more than 136,000 acres of agricultural land that was viewed as vacant land and ripe for development. 

Now, 50 years later, under pressure by the State of California’s Regional Housing Needs Allocation (RHNA), the County is considering a precedent-setting decision to reverse A-60 zoning that would pave the way for development outside of urban growth boundaries and the City Center Corridor for potential development of hundreds of units. This year marks the most recent eight-year Countywide Plan update, and this time around, the State is requiring that the County plan for a significantly higher number of potential housing units than in previous cycles (19x more housing units since the last 8-year cycle). The current RHNA cycle proposes more than 3,000 new units in unincorporated Marin alone. 

Keep Reading…

Hydraulic Clamming Pumps
Now Banned!
Ashley Eagle-Gibbs

With increases in recreational fishing during the pandemic, West Marin has witnessed an increase in clamming, and with this, the use of hydraulic clamming pumps. 

Hydraulic clamming pumps enable clammers to collect a full day's worth of clams at varying tide levels in just a few minutes and leave behind significant habitat damage. 

Consequently, as part of our work to ensure environmentally responsible fisheries, we successfully advocated with partners for an emergency statewide ban of hydraulic pumps for harvesting clams, sand crabs, and shrimp.

This spring, we were thrilled when the Fish and Game Commission applied a permanent rule to fully ban the use of these tools for harvesting, and that our Legal and Policy intern, Rachel Clyde, was able to speak on behalf of EAC at the Fish and Game Commission meetings.

Now that the ban is in effect, not everyone is aware of the rule change.

You can help if you see someone using a hydraulic clamming pump, please alert the California Fish and Wildlife Department (CDFW) by calling 1-888-334-CalTip or report online.

This way CDFW can take advantage of all opportunities to educate the public and enforce the new clamming rules, especially in closed areas, like Bolinas Lagoon or in State Marine Reserves. 

Let’s all work together to make sure we keep recreational clamming and fishing sustainable.

Read Our Coastal Protection Blog

Join MPA Watch: Help the Sea
and See the Change
Leslie Adler-Ivanbrook

Summer is just around the corner and it’s a great time to get to the beach! We are excited to launch our summer training series for MPA Watch. Our program is part of a statewide program training volunteers to collect data on what people are doing in and near California’s network of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs). Marin MPA Watch volunteers survey activities at four locations in Marin: Corte Madera Marsh, Agate Beach / Duxbury Reef, Limantour Beach and Drakes Beach.

This data is important for resource managers, as it provides useful information on visitation in coastal areas. Last year, we trained 23 new volunteers, and along with our continuing volunteers, they recorded 283 surveys! The data shows continued high visitation at Agate Beach / Duxbury Reef. This information is useful to understand where we are seeing increased visitation and to direct resources to protect sensitive habitats and provide public education. A great example of how MPA Watch data has informed a need for public education is at Duxbury Reef, where we have launched a docent program earlier this year.

If you need an excuse to walk on the beach, and would like to contribute to a community science program which collects data to better understand the visitation trends in coastal areas, this program is for you! Join us for one of our upcoming training sessions to become a certified MPA Watch volunteer. 

Learn More and Sign Up
Space is limited due to public health restrictions, so sign up today!

Conserving 30% of California's Lands and Waters
Ashley Eagle-Gibbs 

California is working towards meeting its goals to protect biodiversity, increase climate resiliency, and expand access to natural resources with the California Biodiversity Collaborative’s 30x30 Initiative that seeks to conserve 30% of our state’s lands and waters by 2030. 

At the end of 2021, the California Natural Resources Agency (CNRA) released a draft strategy (Pathways to 30x30) for public review and input on how to meet the goals. EAC and a coastal environmental coalition commented on the draft, advocating for improved definitions of terms, to increase the scope of stakeholders for coastal working waters, update scientific criteria, and commit to achieving 30x30 goals with highly protected Marine Protected Areas.

On Earth Day, the CNRA released its final report, Pathways to 30x30: Accelerating Conservation of California’s Nature. We were encouraged to see a few notable revisions in the final report, thanks to the advocacy of our coastal environmental coalition, including: 

• The specification of biodiversity in the definition of a conserved area;
• Listing environmental organizations and diverse ocean users as relevant stakeholder groups; and 
• reference to the scientific consensus on the value of highly and fully protected areas. 

Keep Reading...

Coastal Commission Rejects Seashore's Water Quality & Climate Strategies
Morgan Patton

On April 7, 2022, the Point Reyes National Seashore (Seashore) sought approval from the California Coastal Commission (Commission) for proposed strategies to improve and protect water quality and reduce climate emissions during the implementation of the General Management Plan Amendment that authorizes continued dairy and beef ranching. 

The Commission rejected the proposed strategies as incomplete and requested that the Seashore staff work with the Commission staff to update the strategies and return for review and potential approval. The Commission remains engaged with the Seashore and did not make any decisions to reopen the April 2021 Federal Consistency Determination. 

Keep Reading... 

Litter Bugs Me:
Spring Roadside Cleanup
Leslie Adler-Ivanbrook

Volunteers for the Litter Bugs Me program recently kicked off their first spring roadside cleanup event! This spring program is a pilot partnership with the Department of Public Works to remove roadside trash ahead of the spring roadside vegetation mowing each spring.

More than 25 community volunteers worked together over two-weeks to remove more than 120 gallons of roadside trash and recyclables in Nicasio, Olema, Sir Francis Drake, Bear Valley Road, and the Chileno Valley. In San Geronimo Valley, the San Geronimo Valley Lions Club cleared an additional 320 lbs of trash, recyclables, and green waste from on and around Sir Francis Drake Blvd.

All of this trash would have been shredded and blown into the creeks, eventually ending up in the ocean. We extend a heartfelt thanks to all involved for their valued service to West Marin!

Learn More and Join our Volunteer Team

Past Copies of Print and Email Newsletters

Western Monarchs - Videos, Working Group Update, Resource Library 

Healthy Tomales Bay

Marin MPA Watch Volunteer Program

Point Reyes National Seashore Ranching Plan

Safeguarding our Coast and Ocean Blog

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