Honor Thy Dunes!

EAC needs your help to submit comments and attend the November 8, 2017 Coastal Commission Hearing in Bodega Bay. EAC has been working to protect the Tomales Dunes complex since 1972, we need your help today to explain to the Coastal Commission that a deal is a deal! 

The Issue
In 2011, the California Coastal Commission approved a Coastal Development Permit (CDP) that legalized Lawson’s Landing, the long-establishing campground that occupies a sensitive dunes-wetland complex at the mouth of Tomales Bay. That permit required the Lawsons to return to the Commission with an CDP amendment to put a wastewater system on the uphill, agricultural portion of their 960-acre property on a location already reviewed and approved by the Commission. The Lawsons have now submitted an amendment, which will be heard by the Commission on November 8th in Bodega Bay.
 
There are two main problems with the amendment. First, it proposes to place an administrative and retail complex and a wastewater system in a location (known as Area 6) that has been designated as an Environmentally Sensitive Habitat Area (ESHA) and is also the habitat of the endangered California Red-Legged Frog, a federally- and state-protected species.  The July 2011 CDP requires that all illegal development in Area 6 be removed and the habitat restored,  and it expressly prohibits any future development in Area 6, apart from agriculture and improvements to the road that runs through it.
 
Second, the 2011 CDP was approved using a process known as conflict resolution, a mechanism that can be used if two equally important aims of the Coastal Act are in conflict.  In the case of Lawson’s Landing in 2011, the mandate to provide visitor-serving recreation clashed with the mandate to protect natural resources. Conflict Resolution allowed the Commission to approve some camping in wetlands, which would otherwise be illegal.  In return the Commission put strict restrictions on development elsewhere on the property, then and in the future.  Conflict Resolution has been used once. You cannot now rebalance a balanced permit.

Doing so would signal that all such protections obtained under conflict resolution can be removed and render the process itself meaningless. This is a threat, not just to this one valuable coastal site, but to the Coastal Act itself and to all permits granted under it. 

EAC does not support the proposed amendment and requests that the Commission protect this site, respect the Coastal Act, and enforce the 2011 CDP including the special conditions that are integral, by denying this amendment.
 

Next Steps
EAC will be at the November hearing arguing forcefully that the Commission should protect this site, respect the Coastal Act and enforce the 2011 Coastal Development Permit including the special conditions that are an integral part of it, by denying this amendment.

To submit your comments, please complete the below form, you will be routed to an email template that will send directly to the Coastal Commission staff. 

Comments must be received by Friday, November 3rd.

PLEASE NOTE: IF YOU LIVE IN A RURAL AREA, IT MIGHT NOT RECOGNIZE YOUR STREET ADDRESS, USE YOUR PO BOX. THANKS!

Learn More
Read EAC's legal counsel's October 2017 Letter to Commission
Read Commission October 2017 Staff Report
Learn More about the Tomales Dunes