Point Reyes Light - September 23, 1999

County wants to remove seal-viewing turnouts around Bolinas Lagoon

In a somewhat peculiar move to control erosion around Bolinas Lagoon, the Marin Open Space District has applied for money to remove the turnouts on Highway 1 along the lagoon's east shore.

Ron Miska, planning and acquisition manager for the district, said Friday that Caltrans has estimated the work will cost $800,000. Miska told members of the Bolinas Lagoon Technical Advisory Committee that he's applied for the money from a $3.6 million Caltrans fund "available for natural resource projects." The fund was part of an $8-million settlement awarded the state following the 1996 SS Cape Mohican oil spill in San Francisco Bay.

An answer on the funding is expected before December, at which time a subcommittee of the lagoon group will report on the effects the project might have on wildlife viewing, habitat improvement, and Caltrans maintenance.

One problem with the turnouts, committee members said, is that Caltrans uses them to store fill, which in winter months washes straight into the lagoon. Miska explained that such storage, while supposedly temporary, turns out to be pretty permanent. "It often stays there for months at a time," he said. "And here you have this unique and beautiful place, and then in your view you see this incredible eyesore."

At the June meeting of the lagoon committee, Skip Schwartz of Audubon Canyon Ranch recommended that only certain turnouts be removed. The money left over from the $800,000 could then be used to keep open the mouths of creeks along the lagoon, which are occasionally clogged with sediment.

Miska said it's likely only some turnouts will be removed. "The estimate is for removing all of the material [associated with the turnouts]," he said. "But that's probably not going to happen. People use those areas to view wildlife, to enjoy the lagoon, and to allow traffic to pass."

Dogtown's Cela O'Connor of the Sierra Club Marin Group, said at Friday's meeting that the removal would greatly curtail the public's ability to view wildlife, as well as her own ability to continue work on a census of the lagoon's birds that has been going on since 1981.

Others in the audience suggested that if the public is denied places to view the lagoon's harbor seals and wetland birds, the more likely people will be to explore the lagoon by kayak, which is often more disruptive to wildlife.

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