This is the second article in a two-part series
on the future of Lawson’s Landing, a popular RV park and campground
at the mouth of Tomales Bay. Last week’s article focused on the
views of the Landing’s owners and guests.
Viewed from the Dillon Beach Road, the upper
pastures of Lawson’s Landing (populated in the summer by the Lawson
family’s cattle), descend into windswept sand dunes and a dark
green fringe of coastal wetlands. The RV park’s natural setting
at the mouth of Tomales Bay is striking, even to passing motorists.
Some look at this piece of land and see an affordable
seaside getaway. Some environmentalists see something else: one of the
last remnants of a dune ecosystem they say has all but vanished from
the California coast.
"I don’t think there’s an adequate
concept of how these fit in the larger context of dunes in California,
how distinct they are," plant ecologist Peter Bay said.
Bay, who has worked for the endangered species division
of the US Fish and Wildlife Service and the Army Corps of Engineers,
said that the dunes around Lawson’s Landing are "mobile, migrating
sand waves," constantly changing shape. Such "mobile dune
systems," he said, once existed around San Francisco and on Point
Reyes, but have been lost to development and the introduction of European
Beachgrass, which takes root in the dunes and stops them from moving.
Bay said that mobile dunes of the kind seen at Lawson’s Landing,
while still common in Oregon, exist in only one other spot on the California
coast, near San Luis Obispo.
Equally important, Bay said, are the wetlands that
form in the wakes (or "slacks") of migrating dunes. Bay said
that at the Landing’s campgrounds, some wetlands are covered over
in the summer with tents and trailers.
"The campgrounds are mostly in dune slacks, and
dune slacks are mostly seasonal wetlands," Bay said. Seasonal wetlands
may not be obvious to an untrained eye, he added, because in the summer
they dry out and don’t resemble marshland.
A website maintained by the Sierra Club states that
the dunes and wetlands around the Landing are home to at least 14 rare,
threatened, or endangered species.
EAC says Landing ‘affordable’ because
of broken rules
The concerns voiced by Bay and others have
led to an intense drive by environmental organizations to curb activities
at Lawson’s Landing. That effort has been spearheaded locally by
the Environmental Action Committee of West Marin.
"I’ve got an open mind in terms of what’s
going to work out there," said EAC executive director Catherine
Caufield. "Where I’m set in my mind is that the laws should
be applied, the regulations should be enforced."
Caufield believes that the county and state have failed
to adequately protect the environment at Lawson’s Landing. While
the state Department of Housing and Community Development threatened
to shut down operations at the Landing in 1992 because of permitting
violations, she noted, county planner Dean Powell at the time came to
the campground’s rescue, writing in a letter to the state that
the county "had no objection" to the state giving the campground
a temporary permit to operate.
Caufield said that the Landing’s image as a bluecollar
paradise is made possible, in part, by its noncompliance with environmental
laws.
"It’s affordable because unlike the rest
of the people in Marin, they don’t have to pay for permits or septics
or meet county standards," she said. "It’s time for the
county and the Coastal Commission to live up to their responsibilities
and enforce the same laws here that they enforce everywhere else."
The Lawson family has often defended the Landing’s
low impact on its surroundings.
"We’re not big developers," campground
co-owner Nancy Vogler said. "Our family has been here for five
generations, and I think we’re very good stewards of the land.
We’re certainly not out to endanger the environment."
While he would not comment on the county’s past
actions, or lack thereof, county planner Ben Berto said that the environmental
review of Lawson’s Landing now underway will lead to "a project
that is compliant with all county regulations."
Three decades of red tape
The permitting process at Lawson’s has
been a protracted one. Conflict over the property’s use dates back
to 1962, when a state inspection found 15 trailers at the Landing to
be illegal (visitors had been coming to the Landing for fishing and
informal camping since the 1920s, but the campground began to see heavy
use only after World War II).
Since then, the Lawson family has been warned repeatedly
by the county of zoning and building violations. The family’s formal
effort to bring the Landing up to date with environmental codes began
in the late 1960s with the drafting of the campground’s first master
plan. An Environmental Impact Report on the property was developed in
the 1970s but eventually judged incomplete. The advent of the California
Coastal Commission in 1976 and the adoption of Marin County’s Local
Coastal Program set new hurdles for the campground. A succession of
revised master plans and environmental studies has followed.
In the past decade alone, the Lawson family notes,
it has spent close to $700,000 for environmental review of its property.
If the operation doesn’t yet have a clean bill of health, they
say, it’s not for lack of trying.
"The thing we can say honestly," campground
co-owner Bill Vogler said, "is that we’ve never balked from
any study we’ve been asked to do."
County planner Berto said that regardless of past
delays, the county is now determined to see Lawson’s Landing through
to the end of the permitting process.
"We are determined to take this process through
to completion at this time and will do so," Berto said. "That’s
the bottom line."
Coastal Commission to weigh priorities
Once approved by the county, the Landing’s
master plan will go to the Coastal Commission for review. Chris Kern,
the commission’s North Central Coast District manager, said that
the campground will require close scrutiny from commissioners and staff.
"Any changes proposed that would potentially
affect public access would have to be carefully reviewed for consistency
with the Coastal Act," Kern said. "At the same time, the Coastal
Act also requires protection of coastal resources. Mitigations that
carry out those requirements would also have to be carefully reviewed."
Lawson’s Landing, in other words, is a case study
in conflicting Coastal Act priorities. Home to rare species of wildlife
and a delicate coastal ecosystem, the Landing is also an affordable
vacation spot for thousands of state residents. How should public access
to the coast – the protection of which is one of the Coastal Commission’s
original mandates – be balanced with preservation of coastal resources?
Such questions are decided on a case-by-case basis,
Kern said, and have yet to be weighed when it comes to Lawson’s
Landing. His staff, he said, is busy reviewing the draft Environmental
Impact Report on the property just released, and will send a letter
commenting on the report to the county in the next month.
"We’re probably on the cusp of becoming
much more involved than we have been in the past," Kern said.
Campers worry about future
In the meantime, Nancy Vogler said, Lawson’s
Landing plans to do anything it can to stay in business and stay affordable.
But with government regulation looming and changes to the campground
almost certain, the Landing’s guests are increasingly worried.
For some among them, what hangs in the balance is a place that has been
part of the lives of their families over several generations.
"They’re scared and uncertain," Nancy
Vogler said. "I’m just trying to assure them that we’re
doing the best job we can, that we intend to be here. And I’m praying."