February 26 2003

By Savannah Blackwell

The San Francisco Recreation and Park Department has come up with a plan to overhaul the boat harbor in the Marina District that may ruin what is now one of the last unobstructed views of the bay and Alcatraz Island from a public promenade along the shoreline.

The plan calls for building two protective barriers, called breakwaters, that will be roughly 25 feet wide and, together, 350 feet long. The idea, Rec and Park officials say, is to better protect some of the harbor's boats from surging currents.

Officials want to apply to the state for a loan to pay for the roughly $35 million project, which would also increase the size of berths to accommodate bigger boats.

Sup. Gavin Newsom has written a resolution giving the department authority to apply to the California Department of Boating and Waterways for the money. The resolution is scheduled for a hearing at the Board of Supervisors' City Services Committee Feb. 27.

At the same time, the department is moving forward with the plan and has submitted it to the Planning Department. But, to the dismay of some activists and the Sierra Club, Rec and Park officials say that they shouldn't have to go through an environmental-review process.

"We know for a fact that that it's hard to predict what will happen with breakwaters. That's well known by marine engineers," John Rizzo, of the Sierra Club's San Francisco chapter, told us. "We need to look at questions like, How will it affect the flow of water? How's it going to affect other parts of the shoreline?

"The fact that they say there's no environmental impact is really quite outrageous. You're talking about filling in the bay."

Neighborhood activist Joan Girardot added, "This will degrade the quality of the public-view corridor. Who is going to want to look at rubble, as opposed to the water?"

Rec and Park director Elizabeth Goldstein said the new breakwaters will not ruin the view from the shore. She also said the department will do whatever city planners deemed necessary to make sure the project does not damage the bay or the green. "We will do whatever is required of us in that regard," she told us.

Even so, Girardot and the Coalition for San Francisco Neighborhoods say the Board of Supervisors should not let the department file a loan application until an environmental impact report is completed. In addition, the Marina Civic Improvement and Property Owners Association Inc., to which Girardot belongs, complained in an April 8, 2002, letter to the board that Rec and Park officials are not planning to stabilize the Marina Green and Marina Boulevard seawalls as part of the project. The seawalls, which the state says are located in areas subject to earthquake liquefaction, have never been retrofitted.

The project would affect the view of the bay from the Marina Green because it calls for building new boat berths along an extended stretch of the green where the view is now open.

Rec and Park officials say the point is not to make rich boaters happy. "When you make changes, it's better for the long term that you make changes to accommodate the most possibilities," spokesperson Becky Ballinger said.

Sup. Aaron Peskin, who has spearheaded efforts to stop bay fill at the airport, told the Bay Guardian he has problems with the project.

"In the past the Commission, has placed breakwaters in the bay that have had unintended consequences – impacts detrimental in any number of ways that have altered the aquatic landscape," he said.