On January 18, 1971, two Standard Oil tankers collided near the Golden Gate Bridge spilling more than 800,000 gallons of bunker fuel into the Pacific Ocean. The spill was catastrophic; heavy, thick oil washed up along beaches in San Francisco and Marin County suffocating wildlife and destroying habitat.

We discovered online archival footage online captured by Dean and Dudley Evenson, who hitchhiked around the Bay Area to document the spill with their Sony portapack. The footage ranges from Ocean Beach, Marin Audubon, and Stinson Beach.

“Fifty years later, this story is both a powerful reminder of how easily accidents can cause environmental devastation and an inspiring story of the strength of people working together on behalf of the environment.” - Elia Haworth, curator of coastal Marin art and history for the Bolinas Museum, Point Reyes Light, January 13, 2021

Thousands of people headed to the beaches throughout the Bay Area to help wildlife and clean up the oil. The thick oil coasted Stinson Beach, Bolinas Beach, Duxbury Reef, R.C.A. beach and others up the coast. At the time of the spill, neither Standard Oil nor the State of California had protocols or procedures to clean up oil spills. That left the immediate response effort up to the local communities.

Click Image to Play: KQED Archival video broadcast of 1971 Bolinas Oil Spill available at https://diva.sfsu.edu/collections/sfbatv/bundles/189387

Our local communities responded by heading to clean up the beach and rescue oiled birds. Local resident Tom D’Onofrio was an early responder and rallied friends and local businesses to construct a boom across the mouth of Bolinas Lagoon in an effort to stop the oil from entering Bolinas Lagoon. A command and response center was established at the College of Marin Biology Lab (Haworth 2021).

Other residents, including Burr Heneman, College of Marin professor, Gordon Chan, and members of the Point Reyes Bird Observatory discussed creation of a communications hub. Richardson Bay Audubon Center was eventually selected to organize spill response efforts (Houston 2021).

Bolinas resident, Ilka Hartmann photographed the spill at R.C.A. beach with her partner Orville Schell, capturing iconic photographs of the scene and Orville’s oil covered fist raised to the sky that was later included in the congressional record of the spill (Haworth 2021).

Founding of EAC

Jerry Friedman, one of EAC’s founders was among the first responders to the beach helping to clean up the oil spill. Following the spill, Jerry collaborated with others, including Gordon Ashby, Sim Van der Ryn, Kate Worsley, Marj Stone, and others, to form a grassroots local environmental action organization that would soon become EAC.

Ironically, EAC’s early funding came from the compensation funds that Standard Oil provided to people who had helped to clean up the spill on the beach. Those payments from big oil helped to pay the non-profit filing fees for EAC to officially become a 501(c)3 organization.

EAC’S FIRST CAMPAIGN

EAC’s first official campaign took aim at the Point Reyes National Seashore’s development of a road to the top of Mount Vision. EAC also organized one of the sail-ins in Tomales Bay to raise awareness about saving habitat in Tomales Bay.

Saving the Marin-Sonoma Coast, Griffin, L. Martin. Page 137

Back in 1970, no one knew Jerry Friedman, who had just moved up here, “to get away from it all.” He had worked with both the Audubon Canyon Ranch and the Conservation Foundation, but it was only when the Point Reyes National Seashore announced its plan to grant public access to the FAA road that leads up to Mount Vision. Jerry Friedman emerged as the natural person to lead some 20 other concerned people in a vigorous protest. Jerry felt it would establish a precedent for increased automobile use in the park, right at a time when other parks were looking to phase out auto access to roads.

Ultimately, the road was declared open to auto use, but the strong protest heralded a no new roads policy for the Seashore and persuaded Jerry and his fellow activists that there was a very specific, continuing role for them to play: namely, to establish a reasonable and firm voice for the conservation and protection of West Marin. That is how in 1971, the Environmental Action Committee of West Marin was born.

1971 - 1972 EARLY CAMPAIGNS

Thanks to EAC’s extensive archives, we are able to track some of the first campaigns in those early years of 1971-1972 that were accomplished with the help and partnership of other nonprofits and organizations working in Marin County at the time.

In 2004, EAC featured a Lost History of EAC article in our newsletter from Jim Gualt that included:

Organized a coalition to prepare a joint statement on the Seashore Master Plan,
Supported the wilderness proposal for the Point Reyes National Seashore,
Established West Marin’s first recycling center,
Helped to establish the adoption of A-60 zoning
Helped to establish the extension of the Tidal Waterways Ordinance up Lagunitas Creek and all the tidal areas in Marin, and
Helped win protection of Limantour Estero and Point Reyes Headlands as research natural areas.

Click on the images below to learn more about EAC’s early years including copies of our archival newsletters from 1971-1979.

In the coming months, we will share more about EAC’s legacy and work over the last 50 years and our plans for the next 50!

REFERENCES:

Haworth, Elia. Point Reyes Light. January 13, 2021.
Available at: www.ptreyeslight.com/article/fifty-years-ago-devastating-oil-spill-galvanized-bolinas

Houston, Will. Marin Independent Journal. January 18, 2021.
Available at: www.marinij.com/2021/01/18/marin-witnesses-recall-massive-oil-spill-of-50-years-ago/

Griffin, L. Martin. Saving the Marin-Sonoma Coast. Page 137. 1998.
Available at: www.martingriffin.org/pdf/SMSCPTTHREEpp123-150.pdf

And a special thank you to Ole Schell and Ilka Hartmann for the use of photographs from the 1971 Standard Oil Spill.