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Last fall, coastal activists were handed a wonderful new tool by Ken and Gabrielle Adelman, a couple who live in the tiny community of Corralitos in Monterey County and who have a great passion for the coast.

Ken's success in dot-com startups has given him the time and resources to devote his photography talents to coastal protection. His early efforts involved taking aerial photographs that were used by environmental groups to defeat the Hearst Corporation's proposal to build a golf course and hotels on their oceanfront property near Hearst Castle in San Luis Obispo County.

Building on this success, Ken purchased a four-seat Robinson R-44 helicopter and set out - with Gabrielle at the controls - to photograph the entire length of California's coast.

The results are spectacular. Since October, they have made more than 12,000 color photos of the California coast available on their website: www.CaliforniaCoastline.org.

Navigating from a map or with latitude and longitude, users can select any area of the state's coastline and - presto - a series of photos along that section are displayed.

The website is a powerful tool that documents conditions along the coast at a given point in time. Scientists are using the site to measure erosional forces, beach conditions, vegetation changes, and development patterns. Photo documentation from the website has already been used in several enforcement actions by the Coastal Commission, including the illegal riprap at the Ritz Carlton/Ocean Colony golf course.

Committee for Green Foothills is one of the many groups whose coastal protection efforts have already benefited incredibly from Ken's website. Because many areas along the shoreline are not visible or easily accessible from inland areas, every photograph is worth its weight in gold as we work to protect coastal resources, improve land stewardship, and ensure that our public trust resources - beaches and waterways - are accessible to all.

California's coast:
Worth fighting for!
by Lennie Roberts

At a celebration of the coast held February 1 at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, activists from throughout California marked the 30th anniversary of the passage of the Coastal Initiative, Proposition 20.

Despite the successes we celebrated, Herculean struggles over development of California's coast are still with us, as evidenced by the recent Court of Appeals decision that the Coastal Commission is unconstitutional, citing the "4-4-4" appointment structure of Commissioners by the Senate Rules Committee, Speaker of the Assembly, and the Governor.

The Commission has appealed this decision, and the Legislature has passed a surgical "fix" which the Governor has signed. The central issue identified by the Court is that of Commissioners serving entirely at the will of their appointing bodies, since this places the Commission at risk of undue influence over votes. Historically, some Commissioners have been replaced in the middle of meetings by their appointing authority, which has a chilling effect on their independence. Changing the law to require four-year fixed terms for Commissioners will reduce this kind of manipulation.

An ironic example of undue influence was the swift replacement of two Commissioners who voted against the Devil's Slide Bypass back in 1985. Caltrans and development-minded allies exerted raw political muscle to overcome the Commission's unfavorable staff recommendation. An initial vote of 7-5 to deny the coastal permit for the Bypass was overturned three months later, after the offending two Commissioners were replaced. But this story turns out better than most, as in the end, the passage of Measure T trumped everything else, and in the spring of 2004, construction will finally begin on the tunnel.

Looking back over the past 30 years, I feel incredibly privileged to have been involved in this historic struggle. Proposition 20 and the 1976 California Coastal Act, crafted by the Legislature, embody landmark concepts for this country, and for California in particular. European countries for years have recognized the importance of creating livable cities and preserving their countryside. But our country's frontier mentality drove the sprawling development that postwar America found irresistible. If development patterns had continued as envisioned in the 1960 San Mateo County Master Plan, there would literally be no "coast" as we know it left today.

Developers hastily vested their rights to build in 1972 by erecting a never-used concrete foundation on the bluff where the Ritz Carlton now stands -- just as the Coastal Initiative was being signed. Thanks to this aerial photo, image no. 13294 from Ken Adelman's website (see related story in sidebar), we can now easily see these pillars emerging from the eroding cliffs and the illegal blufftop rip-rap installed in effors to prevent such erosion from continuing.

Indeed, Henry Doelger's vision for the Half Moon Bay area was to extend Daly City and Pacifica's postwar housing patterns down the coast. The coastside's gently rolling coastal terraces and fertile valley bottoms were slated to be subsumed by housing, golf courses, and freeways. The one "concrete" legacy of the Doelger Plan is the Ritz Carlton Hotel at Ocean Colony in Half Moon Bay. This monstrous edifice can be seen from miles away.

Despite the untiring efforts of people like Ollie Mayer, who travelled to Florida in the early 1970s to dissuade Westinghouse Corporation officials from building the golf courses and hotel, the Ritz Carlton is now a constant reminder of what the coast would surely have become. The original hotel foundation, erected hastily and too close to the crumbling bluffs in 1972 in order to "vest" the rights to build, is now emerging as the cliffs erode. Whenever I see the slick color photo ads for the hotel featuring the newly-exposed pillars of concrete as well as the illegal blufftop rip-rap, I hear the strains of Debussy's "Sunken Cathedral."

If I had clairvoyance, I could imagine a future in which the Ritz Carlton is slowly reclaimed by the victorious ocean. Fast forward a few decades (or perhaps centuries), bring on a few El Nino storms coupled with perigean tides, and this monstrous mistake will likely become a famous ruin.

It's ironic, but I have to thank the Ritz Carlton for waking people up to the continuing need for vigilance and involvement to protect the coast.

We're already seeing the results of this increased vigilance. The old plans of Doelger and Half Moon Bay Properties (the successor owners of some 5,000 acres outside the urban boundary of the Mid-Coast and Half Moon Bay) have been sunken by plans for open space.

What was once a series of large ranches - proposed in the early 1970's to become 2200 condos, homes, and a golf course - is now McNee Ranch State Park. Today's Montara State Beach would have been the private beach for the clubhouse near where today's Outrigger (the former Chart House Restaurant) sits on the bluff.

Further south and to the east of Half Moon Bay is what HMB Properties called Cassinelli Ranch, now known by its more historic name, the Johnston Ranch. These 862 acres were the battleground of Measure D, placed on the ballot by its offshore developer-owners. Measure D sought to eliminate the voter-approved protections for this property, so this prime farmland could be covered with condos, a conference center, and a golf course. In 1992, the San Mateo County voters rejected Measure D by an astounding 82% "no" vote.

And in environmentalists' most recent success in this region, the 4,000 acres known as Rancho Corral de Tierra are now slated for permanent protection, thanks to private philanthropy and the untiring efforts of the Peninsula Open Space Trust.

Thanks to 30 years of work to protect the coast, we can enjoy these and other successes every day. The next time you look across those sweeping views of natural open space, take a moment to visualize what would have been there without the Coastal Act. But don't become complacent. This place is worth fighting for, and the fight for the coast is never finished!