Greetings Friend,

Wishing you and your family a happy and healthy start to fall! I am enjoying the cooler nights and mornings. Today marks the beginning of a new water year in California and I am hopeful for some rainfall next week and an overall wet winter to help with the drought.

This month's issue includes some updates on our advocacy programs events from September as well as some exciting ways for you to engage with us in October!

Save the date for our annual Member Meeting & Awards taking place this year on October 28th from 6:30 pm - 8:00 pm on Zoom. This is an opportunity for our members to receive an update on our last year of work, elect our Board of Directors, and honor the work of our volunteers and interns. This year, we will also be honoring Dan Howard, recently retired Superintendent of Cordell Bank National Marine Sanctuary with our Peter Behr Award. We also are excited to feature a keynote presentation by Dr. Kristina Hill, Associate Professor of Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning and Urban Design at UC Berkeley on coastal topics. Online registration and more details coming soon.

Connected to the member meeting is our annual Board Election to reelect our Board President, Bridger Mitchell, for another three-year term. Please check your mailbox in the coming week for a postcard ballot. Current members are eligible to vote. If your membership has recently expired, just contact us to renew so you can cast your ballot! Members can vote online, bring the postcard to our office (65 Third Street, Suite 12 in Point Reyes Station), or mail it to PO Box 609, Point Reyes Station, CA 94956). Voting must take place by October 25th.

We are also excited to announce that we are hard at work setting up our new office space for our first public environmental display featuring the western monarch butterfly. This first installment is set to run from November 2021 through January 2022. We are thrilled with our new office space and the opportunities it offers us for additional community engagement and education. More on this exciting event soon!

Thank you for your continued support, and all that you do to make our work possible.

In gratitude,

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.

Did you know you
can set up a recurring gift online? 

Whether you choose to set up an annual recurring gift, or want to spread out your giving monthly or quarterly, a recurring gift is a great way to provide stable income to our nonprofit, so we can stay focused on our environmental protection advocacy work and impact on our community - thank you! 

P.S. Thank you for sticking with us through these challenging times! Typically this time of year, we would have been gathering on the ridge to hear the tunes of the Piper, and usher in the changing seasons, but with the pandemic and severe drought, we opted to stay safe this year. However, our Piper team came together to make this special video to usher in the season, and thank you for all your generous support throughout the year! Enjoy!

Learn more about the plan: Read the Record of Decision Documents

Seashore Finalized Plan for Ranching 

The Point Reyes National Seashore (Seashore) finalized the controversial General Management Plan Amendment (GMPA) on September 13th with the filing of the Record of Decision (ROD). The GMPA is the public process the Seashore started in 2018 to determine where, how, and for how long ranching operations may continue. The ROD included some changes to the Final Environmental Impact Statement (Final EIS) that was posted for public review in September 2020 and includes modifications to some areas of the Final EIS regarding lease length, ranch operating agreements, diversification, elk management, silage production, and succession.

Since the release of the ROD, we have been digging in; as the saying goes, the devil is in the details... We are taking every step to ensure we fully understand the implications. This process has included reading the documents in detail, documenting our questions, meeting with environmental partners, elected officials, and having meetings with the Seashore staff to better understand the complexities and details of the plan. Throughout this process, we have remained steadfast in our position regarding accountability, transparency, and responsibility to ensure the protection of park resources. We will have more on this very soon. In the meantime, you can read our blog posts on the issue.

County Exploring Sea Level Rise Adaptation and Drafting Hazards Guidance

Marin County launched a Coastal Communities Working Group (CCWG) in early 2020 composed of EAC, Surfrider, the Alliance of West Marin Villages, and additional village association representatives with the goals of: providing local, community input on hazard and climate adaptation planning initiatives and projects in West Marin; for the members to be liaisons between the County and their respective communities; and for members to gain expertise and integrate knowledge from each project to inform its review of future planning processes.

The CCWG builds on the County’s C-SMART (Collaboration: Sea-level Marin Adaptation Response Team) process that identifies vulnerabilities and potential solutions to the County’s coastal climate challenges. 

Three County projects are currently the focus of the CCWG:

1) Stinson Beach Nature-Based Adaptation Feasibility Study,

2) Tomales Bay Living Shoreline Feasibility Study, and

3) Local Coastal Program (LCP) environmental hazards policy amendments.  

Click here to continue reading for updates on each of the project areas above and how you can plug in and save the date for Supervisor Rodoni's Office Hours October 11th with Guest Tom Lai, Community Development Dept. Director RE: Local Coastal Program (LCP). Zoom link. Meeting ID: 958 4067 2114. Passcode: 599912

Drought & Decisions to Remove Water from the Environment

We are in a historic drought and getting a preview of what a future with limited water may look like. Our water infrastructure is stressed, communities are on the verge of rationing water, and the need to find new sources of water are being explored through discussions and actions related to desalination, building water pipelines, and the implementation of new well drilling. 

Often, the focus of the drought is framed on the negative impacts on people, which leaves out the impacts on our natural environment. The drought is not only impacting the human environment, it is having profound negative impacts on the natural environment and species. One only has to take a look at our watershed with dry creeks and stressed trees and vegetation to begin to get a glimpse of the implications. The natural environment needs water not only to support habitat and species, but also to recharge our community water sources.

One of the impacts not being discussed are the decisions by local water districts to adjust water release requirements to creeks to support species. Locally, Marin Water (formerly Marin Municipal Water District) has filed an emergency use petition to change the timing and reduce the amount of water that they put back into the creek to support the endangered coho salmon population. The need for this arrangement is due to the damming of the creek.

Click here to continue reading about the plans to remove water from Lagunitas Creek and how you can help. 

Anticipating the Fall Arrival of Monarchs & Actions You Can Take Today

Fall has arrived and, with anticipation, we are waiting for the arrival of the western monarch butterfly to their overwintering grounds along the Pacific Coast, typically beginning in September and lasting through February.

In Marin, monarchs historically have overwintered at locations in Bolinas, Muir Beach, and Stinson Beach to name a few. During these overwintering months, the butterflies will cluster together in groves and feed on nectar plants that bloom late fall through winter to build up fat storage to survive. In February, the butterflies will leave overwintering grounds and return inland to find milkweed, which they depend on for  mating, to continue the next generation of butterflies. 

Unfortunately, the butterflies are in crisis. In the 1980s, it is estimated that there were 4.5 million butterflies counted at overwintering locations along the Pacific Coast. Last year, volunteers counted only 2,000 butterflies along the Pacific Coast. This is a drop of more than 99 percent in the population. 

There are many factors contributing to the dramatic decline in monarch butterflies including habitat loss, use of pesticides and toxic chemicals, disease and parasites, and changing conditions related to the climate crisis.

Click here to continue reading about actions you can take today to help the monarch butterfly.

Marin MPA Watch Summer Season Closes with 1st Spanish Language Training

We delivered our first Spanish language Marin MPA Watch training at Corte Madera Marsh this past weekend. Thank you to our Coastal Advocate intern Dhalma Suarez who translated our Marin MPA Watch volunteer materials, and fluidly delivered the training session to three eager volunteers for her capstone project. 

As our group learned about California’s network of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs), collecting community science data, and appreciating the beautiful and scenic day, we were treated to a river otter sighting at the mouth of Corte Madera Creek! 

Following a year pause on our training, we are so excited to have restarted this program in force this summer! We conducted six trainings at various locations including: Duxbury Reef, Limantour Beach, and Corte Madera Marsh.

We brought 22 new volunteers into our fold, and with our continuing volunteers,125 surveys were conducted this summer. Since its inception in 2013, Marin MPA Watch has conducted 1,436 surveys.

Click here to continue reading about our Marin MPA Watch program, the work of our Coastal Advocate interns, and view our summer photo gallery.

Litter Bugs Me a Great Success! 

We hosted our annual Litter Bugs Me, a roadside clean up effort in West Marin during the week of September 13-18th, after a one-year delay due to Covid-19. The event started over 20 years ago by West Marin residents Rigdon Currie and Dennis Rodoni, now our Marin County Supervisor, before it was handed off to us in 2009. The clean up effort invites businesses, village associations, and clubs to adopt-a-roadside in one or more of West Marin’s coastal towns to help reduce the busy summer season trash build up before the winter rains.

This year included participation from the East Shore Planning Group, Inverness Association, Olema Association, Point Reyes Station Village Association, San Geronimo Valley Lions, Salmon Protection and Watershed Network, West Marin Community Services and West Marin Climate Action. In addition, EAC hosted 25 volunteers in and around Point Reyes Station on Coastal Clean Up Day.

The week-long effort resulted in over 1,200 pounds of trash and 500 pounds of recycling being removed from our coastal watershed! This year, notable items teams removed from the roadsides, creeks, and waterways included a couch, a boat steering shaft, several parts of cars (including a bumper), a dump site of six trash bags that were thrown into the creek, a paint disposal site near Lagunitas Creek that was estimated at being 40 years old, and an abandoned campsite near Point Reyes Station. 

A big thanks to all our volunteers and partner groups, including our financial sponsors at HomeLight, and the Point Reyes Village Association; and to our in-kind sponsors at Recology of Sonoma-Marin, who donated trash and recycling bins and helped weigh and sort the trash, and to Lagunitas Brewery, who donated cold brews as a thank you to our volunteer teams.

Please join us and our partners next year during the third week in September!

Learn More and View Volunteers in Action Slideshow

Past Copies of Print and Email Newsletters

Western Monarchs - Videos, Working Group Update, Resource Library 

Duxbury Docent Program Kick Off! 

Marin MPA Watch Volunteer Program

Protect the Pacific - Fight Against Offshore Oil and Gas

Safeguarding our Coast and Ocean Blog

Did you know you can set up a recurring gift online? 

Whether you choose to set up an annual recurring gift,
or want to spread out your giving monthly or quarterly, a recurring gift is
a great way to provide stable income to our nonprofit, so we can stay focused on our environmental protection advocacy work and impact on our community - thank you! 

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