If you drive north along palmtree-lined Bay Road, passing the Bay Bridge,

the Piers,

and somewhat confusing public art,

you’ll eventually end up at Crissy Field, a large expanse of park, with a bit of marsh enclosed, and sandy beaches to walk on.

The views of the Golden Gate Bridge are postcard material, and as such sold in every tourist trap in town. That said, the views are gorgeous.

Walking in those green meadows and along the pristine beach you wouldn’t know that the area was for the longest time one of the major military air fields on the West Coast if not the country. Parking lots and concrete- plastered runways covered the area since 1921, with barracks on the infill of what was once a marsh housing enlisted men, and other buildings serving as administrative offices and officers’ quarters.

Fog made for difficult flying conditions, as did the construction of the Golden Gate Bridge in 1937. After World War II the field was primarily used to received MedEvac flights bringing wounded Vietnam soldiers from Travis Air Force Base to Letterman Hospital. It closed eventually in 1974.

In 1994, Crissy Field and the rest of the Presidio became part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, under the care of the National Park Service. Three years later they started enormous restoration efforts, the results of which are now enjoyed by throngs of people, tourists and neighbors alike.

About 230,000 cubic yards of soil had to be removed from Crissy Marsh alone to transform it from a parking lot back into a habitat for plants and animals like herons, egrets, crab and fish. The rest of the area had to be cleaned from decades of accumulation of hazardous materials, an undertaking that was supported by millions of dollars in donations from citizens and organization alike.

Here is a detailed history provided by the National Parks Conservancy, with remarkable before and after photographic footage of the transformation. A true restoration.

Have we learned anything?  Cargill Inc., the nation’s largest privately held company, recently wanted to develop nearly 1,400 acres of the shoreline along the San Francisco Bay in Redwood City, destroying existing marsh land. Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency tried to give the green light, ignoring both it’s own agency regulations and the Supreme Court’s decision on the Clean Water Act.

Save the Bay, an energetic environmental protection organization, California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, and three other environmental organizations sued the EPA and EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler over the agency’s March 2019 decision not to protect the salt ponds under the Clean Water Act. A federal judge has now ruled in favor of the environmentalists, but one wonders, of course, what will happen if and when the issue winds its way up to the newly configured Supreme Court.

Judge Tosses EPA Approval of Bay Area Wetlands Development

Why is it that every bit of nature has to be ripped out of the maw of forces trying to destroy it in these urban environments? Why do always either the state or private business reap the economic benefits of their strongholds, while the damage removal has to rely the generosity of citizens’ purses or the tax payer stepping up? And are people even aware of the work and time and money and sweat and tears provided by conservancy organizations who try to rescue what they still can? Rhetorical question, I admit.

Let’s end with this, then:

Here is music from Crissy Field in 2013.