Save The Bay

In 1961, the San Francisco Bay was shrinking. Faced with plans to fill in vast stretches for development, three Berkeley women decided the playbook needed to be rewritten. Sylvia McLaughlin, Kay Kerr, and Esther Gulick saw a future where the Bay was little more than a narrow river and they weren't going to let it happen. They founded the Save San Francisco Bay Association, initially a grassroots lobby group, after established conservation organizations said a campaign was not feasible. Their early work involved attending city council meetings and rallying public support to stop development plans. A pivotal moment came in 1969. After years of relentless campaigning, the organization successfully pushed for state legislation to create the Bay Conservation and Development Commission (BCDC). This bill, signed into law by then-Governor Ronald Reagan, passed by a single vote and established the first coastal protection agency in the world. The BCDC was given the power to regulate development along the shoreline, effectively halting the large-scale filling of the Bay. This victory wasn't a one-time event; it was the foundation. Save The Bay continued to advocate for the Bay's health, leading campaigns to ban plastic bags, stop airport runway expansion into the water, and secure public funding for wetland restoration. What started in a Berkeley living room became a powerful force, creating a new model for urban environmental activism that has protected a vital natural resource for decades.