San Francisco briefs

Marina Harbor update

The San Francisco Planning Department has agreed to prepare a full Environmental Impact Report on the proposed expansion project at Marina Harbor (see previous article).

The department had earlier issued a Negative Declaration, asserting that the project would have no environmental impact and therefore would require no EIR. The Sierra Club had appealed this decision. Short of the abandonment of the entire project, this was the best possible outcome to the Club's appeal. With an EIR process, we have a much better chance of getting changes to the project to reduce or eliminate the harmful impacts to the Bay and the Marina Green park.

John Rizzo

Ansel Adams garden

The Sierra Club is urging the Golden Gate National Recreation Area to acquire the site of photographer and conservationist Ansel Adams' childhood garden next to the Presidio. The lot was the site of a 1995 catastrophic sewer failure which destroyed a house. The lot was acquired by the Public Utilities Commission when it paid for damages to the house and site. The PUC now wants to sell the site as two lots to recoup its costs. The adjacent house was Adams' home for 57 years, and his family helped create the now-destroyed garden. There is a proposal to create an Ansel Adams memorial on the site; the first step is to acquire the site as part of our National Park.

Cheaper, greener power without PG&E

The Sierra Club San Francisco Group supported the Community Choice Aggregation Ordinance passed on May 11 by the Board of Supervisors. The ordinance was proposed by Supervisor Tom Ammiano, whom the Club has endorsed for re-election in November. On May 27, Mayor Gavin Newsom signed it into law. Community Aggregation will allow the city to use existing facilities to distribute retail power. State law requires that at least 20% of power purchases be from renewable sources by 2017, but the new ordinance will allow the city to purchase an even higher proportion. It will be able to use more of the power revenues for conservation efforts than PG&E does. An independent study found that the city can purchase power wholesale and then distribute it to consumers, with a reasonable fee to PG&E, at a surplus which could be used to make San Francisco more sustainable and/or to reduce utility bills.

Don't privatize Randall Museum

The San Francisco Group urges the city to preserve the Randall Museum as a city-run teaching facility and not to privatize it. The museum is located on Corona Heights high above Market and Castro and has a series of environmental exhibits, model trains, ceramics for children, a lecture hall where monthly environmental talks are presented (co-sponsored by the San Francisco Group), and much more.

All this costs over $2,000,000 a year to operate, and so the Recreation and Park Commission is considering granting a license to the Friends of Randall Museum to support and run the facility. The Friends have till now provided about $47,000 a year, and has no experience at running a large operation. The Group is concerned that this arrangement will diminish public input, increase costs, and potentially decrease the emphasis on youth and teaching.

We suggest, as an alternate method to cover part of the operating shortfall, that the Recreation and Park Department should charge for parking at the museum's parking lot.

Howard Strassner