State coastal commissioners meeting Tuesday, Nov. 12, in San Diego will consider a proposal from Marshall Boatworks to repair 200 feet of wooden bulkheads.
The project would include covering the lower half of the bulkheads with green plastic "lumber," backfilling with concrete, and installing an 800-square-foot concrete slab for boat washing.
Runoff drains, a sump pump, and two collection tanks are also part of the proposal.
Commission staff has recommended approval of the proposal.
County supervisors on Tuesday, Nov. 12, will conduct a public hearing to consider an appeal from Bolinas resident Ralph Garside, who wants to legalize numerous structures on his property at 20 Ocean Ave.
The hearing had previously been scheduled for Nov. 5.
County planning staffer Andrea Fox has reported the structures include: a 900-square-foot barn; a 1,137-square-foot addition to a house; a 747-square-foot aviary; and a series of decks, retaining walls, gazebos, stairs, and stair landings.
Fox noted that Garside "has filed an appeal [with the supervisors] because conditions of project approval require removal of the illegal residential addition, bird aviary addition, and decks, gazebos, stairs, and stair landings.
"Additionally, [Garside] is seeking a refund of fines and penalties imposed on the property."
Marconi Center to stop using herbicides on broom By Anne Baker
Marconi Conference Center in Marshall has agreed to stop using herbicides to control undesirable brush.
The center's Board of Directors has decided to eliminate herbicides as of Jan. 1, ending a two-year battle by the MOW & SOW organization for chemical-free plant control at the state-owned conference center.
By the end of this year, long-range landscaping plans at the 62-acre site will be completed, said director Ben Dial.
"When we got the site [in 1990], it was inundated with Scotch broom and poison oak," Dial said. "We burned and pulled and smothered, and as a last resort were using herbicides."
A letter-writing campaign urging the conference center to stop herbicide use was organized in 1994 by MOW & SOW, which previously pressured Caltrans to stop using herbicides along Highway 1 in West Marin.
The nonprofit group's founder and director, Donna Sheehan, lives next door to Marconi Conference Center.
Contamination debated
International studies indicate herbicides can be harmful to life, Sheehan said. While there were no chemical measurements done on center property, Sheehan said, she was concerned that toxins could wash from the center into Tomales Bay.
As a result, she urged various groups planning conferences at Marconi to boycott the center.
However, chemist and biologist Tim Hollibaugh, who managed a state university field station based on center property, said there is no evidence in the bay of any herbicide contamination from the conference center.
Called for boycott
Said Sheehan, on the other hand, said, "When I saw the vegetation bright orange instead of green, that's when I arranged the boycott."
Supporting the boycott were Greenpeace, Odwalla Natural Juices, and the Marin Sierra Club Group, Sheehan said.
A conference organizer for the University of California complained two years ago that their group was not notified that the herbicide Garlon 4 was sprayed over 15 acres while their conference was in session.
"The Americans with Disabilities Act ... requires that special accommodation be made to protect those in our group who may be chemically sensitive and to those who might fall outside the [state's] risk assessment evaluation," wrote Debra Harris, the School of Medicine program manager at UC Berkeley.
"If we thought there was damage to the environment, we never would have used that method," Dial said.
Sheehan said MOW & SOW is developing a model so other state agencies can stop using herbicides. Dial said he would welcome working with the group.
Muddy Hollow to be wilderness By Anne Baker
Last year's Inverness Ridge fire has advanced plans of the Point Reyes National Seashore officials to designate roughly 2,000 acres of the park as wilderness.
Utility poles in Muddy Hollow on the south side of Mount Vision had been the last obstacle to creating a wilderness area west of Limantour Road.
When the wildfire roared through that area of the National Seashore, 2.2 miles of poles and lines were damaged. A deal was then struck between the Park Service and PG&E to restring powerlines underground instead of replacing the weakened poles, said park Supt. Don Neubacher.
The work was expected to cost $200,000 in federal emergency funds, but the project was completed below budget and ahead of schedule last month.
This, in turn, prompted the Park Service to propose undergrounding another half mile of lines, Neubacher has told the Citizens Advisory Commission to the National Seashore and GGNRA.
If an area is officially designated wilderness, above-ground lines and mechanical vehicles are not allowed.
Park Service staff plan to apply for Muddy Hollow's full-wilderness status next spring, Neubacher said.
The electricity through Muddy Hollow powers the youth hostel, several park-employee residences, and cabins and a center for the Clem Miller Institute for Education, noted park spokesman John Dell'Osso.
Muddy Hollow is home to foxes and coyotes, mountain beavers (a candidate for the endangered species list) and the rare San Francisco owl's clover.
