On the shores of Tomales Bay, weekends stand in stark contrast to week days. Lines of parked cars form along the main roads, most heavily near easy-access points like Chicken Ranch Beach. Kayakers take to the shoreline in fleets. Fishermen, gone by midday, nonetheless leave remains—bait boxes, fuel jugs, beer bottles. Where does everyone put their trash? Where do they go to the bathroom? And who could enforce best practices?
These were the questions asked by attendees of a workshop hosted by the Tomales Bay Watershed Council on Tuesday. The council, comprised of representatives from a host of federal, state and local groups intent on protecting the watershed, organized a panel discussion at the Inverness Yacht Club—and invited attendees to help brainstorm best management practices in break-out groups.
On the panel were two representatives of Blue Waters Kayaking, the only kayaking company with a site on the bay; John Dell’Osso, a spokesman for the Point Reyes National Seashore; Willy Vogler, whose family owns Lawson’s Landing in Dillon Beach; and Richard James, an Inverness resident whose passion is to collect and document garbage in the area.
The operations manager at the Blue Waters, Dallas Smith, and Liz Wilhelm, a lead guide, kicked off the panel with an explanation of the concept of “leave no trace,” which includes seven principles lauded by the outdoor recreation industry. The principles: plan ahead and prepare, travel and camp on durable surfaces, dispose of waste properly, leave what you find, minimize campfire impacts, respect wildlife and be considerate of other visitors.
To follow these guidelines, the company takes a couple of important measures. Campfires are nixed to avoid scarring beaches and risking wildfire. All human waste is packed out, either in portable toilets or “wag bags,” a small kit that breaks down waste enough to throw it into garbage cans thanks to a NASA-developed gelling agent. Kayakers are encouraged to stay on trails and out of swim zones and to keep their distance from wildlife.
Despite these practices, the company cannot keep up with demand: business has increased by roughly 25 percent over the last five years, co-owner Pamalah MacNeily said. Blue Waters has started taking big groups into Sonoma County, because on Tomales Bay, overnight permits are booked out six months in advance.
Speaking on Tuesday’s panel, Mr. Dell’Osso said the park has also integrated the no-trace principles. In 2015, two trainers from the national organization called Leave No Trace came out to the seashore for a week to work with park officials after the park was identified as a “hotspot” for visitor traffic.
The park issues 20 overnight camping permits for the bay each night, three of which are for groups as large as 25. (Blue Waters regularly reserves one of those group permits.) Mr. Dell’Osso floated the idea of further limiting the number of overnight campers on the bay, though he said he thought numbers of overnight visitors had leveled off in the last few years. The long-term trend is growth, however: compared to the 2.5 million annual visitors today, 1980 saw 1.4 million.
Last year, the park calculated 13,000 “visitor use nights” on the bay, compared to 34,000 overnighters elsewhere in the park.
For his part, John Granatir, who co-owns Blue Waters Kayaking with Ms. MacNeily and has run a kayak company on the bay since 1994, thinks education is paramount. “I don’t think the solution is to further limit permits [or] access,” he said by phone on Wednesday. “I think what we need is easier, more responsible, better-controlled access.”
Mr. James, who tracks trash primarily around on the bay and records his often astonishing findings on his blog The Coastodian, presented a slideshow on Tuesday that demonstrated what the visitor footprint looks like on the ground. His photographs showed dangerous parking congestion on main throughways like Highway 1 and Sir Francis Drake Boulevard, overflowing trash receptacles and a whole range of surprising items he finds along the shore.
The most offensive of these items was human feces, though Mr. James is also rankled by a recent surge in inflatable kayak boxes, heaps of beer bottles thrown in the trash rather than being recycled and evidence of shoreside campfires amid dry brush.
The last speaker, Mr. Vogler, described how a blog he started a decade ago to report fishing conditions and attract visitors to Lawson’s Landing was now generating a glut of fisherman. Though representatives from Fish and Wildlife regularly patrol the bay, Mr. Vogler said he also tries to keep customers in compliance. The biggest issue of the day—especially now that the abalone fishery is closed—is the excessive take of clams.
A room of nearly 50 people broke out after the panel discussion to brainstorm solutions to the impact of recreation on the bay.
When reporting back, groups showed a universal interest in increased enforcement. More volunteers, funding for the park and responsibility put on the Sheriff’s Office were all highlighted desires.
Another common theme was interest in more trash receptacles at local beaches and better signage about what belongs in which bin. Others suggested that overnight campers on the bay leave their cars at the Bear Valley Visitor Center, perhaps for a fee, and shuttle to the bay.
The workshop was part of new wave of energy for the Tomales Bay Watershed Council. After losing funding for its coordinator in 2012, the council reformed as a nonprofit this year and has been gathering momentum on a host of projects. These include hands-on initiatives such as a collaborative wetland restoration project at Chicken Ranch Beach, along with new research and public outreach.