LWVBay Area to discuss R SAP and Sea Level Rise on March 20th.

By Louise Rothman-Riemer

According to the website for the Bay Conservation and Development Commission, (BCDC) “Sixty years ago, three remarkable women convinced the State of California to create the world’s first coastal protection agency – BCDC. Kay Kerr, Sylvia McLaughlin, and Esther Gulick looked west from their East Bay living rooms and saw a shoreline and wetlands being defiled by garbage and development. The Bay was endangered – an average of four square miles of the Bay had been filled during each of the previous 110 years. Action was needed, and the three women founded the Save San Francisco Bay Association (now known simply as Save the Bay).

Today, BCDC’s “Regional Shoreline Adaptation Plan” (R SAP) is taking the lead to work with Bay Area communities to meet the challenges that sea level rise, will have on the nine counties that surround the San Francisco Bay.

The League of Women Voters Bay Area will be including a portion of its Bay Area League Day to hear Sabrina Lopez of BCDC provide an overview of how R SAP is working with communities to inform and educate on the impact that sea level rise could and likely will have the nine Bay Area counties. For example, San Francisco and Oakland Airports are on the Bay and of course the ports in many communities are as well. BCDC has been having webinars and meetings for Bay Area communities to enable these communities to better understand the impact sea level rise will have for them. It is important that impacted communities be part of the solution.

It is also important that counties work together to determine solutions. While this will be expensive, the cost of mitigation now will be a fraction of what it could cost without an aggressive approach to stay ahead of what is coming as sea level rise changes the Bay businesses, housing, transportation, and everyday lives.

It will be important for League Members to be aware of R SAP’s plan as well as  Plan Bay Area 2050+. The website for 2050+ states that it is the “Foundational framework for a future vision of the Bay Area. Including:

• “Forecasts and Assumptions about the Bay Area’s future (population, jobs, financial needs and revenues, sea level rise, etc.);

• Strategies for public investment and policy reform; and

• Geographies where future housing and/or job growth can be focused under the plan’s Strategies.”

LWVBA will be taking the lead to enable, League members and the public to actively become involved in finding solutions to meet the challenges we all will face with sea level rise.

Here are links to Plan Bay Area 2050+:  https://planbayarea.org/plan-bay-area-2050-plus-blueprint; and to the Regional Shoreline Adaptation Plan: https://www

.bayadapt.org/regional-shoreline-adaptation-plan/