Environmentalists Call New Sharp Park Study the Most Complete Ever, but Golfers Call it Spin

The Wild Equity Institute, a San Francisco-based environmental policy advocacy organization, sent a letter Thursday to the San Francisco mayor and board of supervisors calling for the complete conversion of Sharp Park Golf Course to a nature reserve for endangered native frog and snake species and a park.

Attached to the letter is what Brent Plater, executive director of Wild Equity, calls “the most in-depth and only peer-reviewed study of Sharp Park to date.”

This study, he notes, runs counter to the which found that maintaining the golf course while restoring the Sharp Park seawall, which protects the area from erosion by the ocean, and beginning to restore frog and snake habitat was the best plan for the area. 

This new study, which was prepared by ESA PWA, an environmental consulting firm, makes four assertions:

1) “The least costly restoration alternative that would most benefit endangered species at Sharp Park would remove the golf course and restore the natural ecosystem, saving taxpayers tens of millions of dollars in a time of budget crisis.”

2) “Restoring the natural processes of Laguna Salada will preserve the Sharp Park beach, while the Park Department’s proposal will result in the beach eroding away.”

3) “Sharp Park historically provided more extensive habitat for the California red-legged frog and the San Francisco garter snake, and only through reviving a natural functioning coastal lagoon system can a sustainable and resilient habitat for these endangered species be maintained at Sharp Park in the face of future climate change.”

4) “The proposed restoration will provide improved flood and erosion protection for surrounding properties.”

San Francisco, which owns and maintains the course, has been implementing habitat restoration at the Laguna Salada, the main habitat for frog and snake. It has posted signs on fencing warning people to stay out of the restoration area. It's also made changes to the management and maintenance of the golf course to prevent further damage to the ecosystem. Restoration of the seawall has been its stumbling block, however.

The seawall needs repairing because the golf course floods almost every winter, causing damage to both the surrounding habitat and golf course. When it floods, golf course management pumps water off of the course and causes further damage to the environment and frog and snake populations.

A plan to restore the seawall was never very well defined and will cost a lot of money. San Francisco, as well as California U.S. Congresswoman Jackie Speier, asked for federal funding to do a study on what needs to be done to the seawall in 2009. To-date, nop federal money has come. 

Plater claims that the 2009 study was scientifically unsound and failed to consider the situation holistically.

“The report in 2009 roundly criticized by regulatory bodies and land management agencies," he said. "They didn't consider much of the information available in the new report, such as sea level rise, climate change and beach conservation. These are important elements of Sharp Park, but they were ignored.”

Besides preserving a habitat for endangered species, the Wild Equity Institute believes that transforming the golf course into a park and habitat would be the most moneymaking move for both San Francisco and Pacifica, said Plater. 

“Sharp Park Golf Course, which is owned and operated by San Francisco, provides no money to Pacifica at all,” said Plater. “It doesn’t provide money directly or indirectly and it’s been there for 80 years—it’s failed to become a regional attraction and Pacifica is broke. National park visitor centers in San Francisco or Point Reyes bring in millions a year, however. People eat at restaurants, stay at hotels.”

According to Plater, maintaining the status quo at Sharp Park, or even implementing the San Francisco Recreation & Parks Department’s 2009 plan, will ultimately end in a loss of revenue and a natural disaster.

“With the data we do have available, the amount of money you’d have to spend to make a regional attraction out of the golf course would far exceed any revenue that course could ever bring in,” he said. “Under the current model, they can try and keep the status quo and have it putter around for a few more decades until the seawall fails and the whole place floods. The status quo will lose even if a restored landscape doesn’t occur.”

Additionally, Plater asserts that closing down the Sharp Park Golf Course would improve the actual game of golf in the Bay Area.

“From a golf perspective, we really should be thinking about the long-term sustainability of the game in the Bay Area,” he said. “The Bay Area currently oversupplies golf--six million rounds more than demand, and it’s getting worse.”

So, Plater asks, why not close Sharp Park?

“There are going to be golf courses that close,” he said. “[Sharp Park offers] a marginal experience and it has flooding issues. There are other, better golf courses that are going to close instead [is Sharp Park stays open], and the game of golf will be made worse off.”

Richard Harris, a founding member of the San Francisco Public Golf Alliance, an organization that has long stood in defense of preserving the Sharp Park Golf Course, made comment on the new study.

Harris questioned the validity of calling this study “independent” or “peer-reviewed” in the first place.

“It’s not independent," Harris said. "Bob Battalio (one of the preparers of this study), he’s been Mr. Plater’s advocate throughout this process for the past few years. He is not independent. Same thing with Peter Baye (also listed as a preparer); he’s been writing these things for the last few years. These are not independent guys.”

Both Bob Battalio and Peter Baye worked with Plater during the process leading up to the 2009 study.

Harris also pointed out what he believes to be very expensive oversights in this new study.

“The golf course is planted with Kikuyu grass (an East African grass that was commonly used on golf courses in the region in the in the early 20th century), and it was use on golf courses in the ‘30s and ‘40s. It’s highly invasive and it keeps other things out. If this is going to be repurposed from a golf course to a nature habitat, you have to get that out and that Kikuyu is going outcompete what other natives are in there. You can’t just flood it (the course), you have to get it out.”

One important aspect of this plan is to build an overpass or underpass on Highway 1 that would allow the frog and snake populations to connect, through Sanchez Creek, to neighboring populations and habitats.

“The Laguna Salada SFGS (frogs and snakes) population is on the northernmost edge of the species range (USFWS 1985),” reads the study, “and may be important for genetic interchange between other populations further south. However, surrounding development has become a barrier to SFGS movement into and out of the park, isolating park populations from outside genetic flow. Concrete highway barriers occur on both sides of HWY 1 adjacent to Sharp Park and Mori Point. While these barriers protect SFGS from vehicular traffic they also act as movement barriers.”

So, the study concludes, the ““The primary limiting factors for habitat quality (in the lagoon and surrounding terrestrial environment), sustainability, and population persistence of SFGS and CRLF are likely to be consequences of three primary influences: lack of suitable upland habitat paired with ongoing golf course maintenance and operations; stabilization of artificially low lagoon levels and the lack of an available corridor to connect these populations to the east side of HWY 1.”

But, as Harris mentioned, the cost of installing an underpass or overpass on Highway 1 is not included in the cost estimate of the plan recommended by this study, which is $5,240,000.

“Their [Wild Equity’s] grand vision is to develop a new migration corridor that eliminates the freeway and has frogs and snakes marching up and down the hill to Crystal Springs,” said Harris. “Where’s the money going to come from for that? What’s a freeway under- or overpass going to cost?”

When asked why the cost of installing a underpass or overpass on Highway 1 was not included in the project proposal, Plater said “the probability of getting that part of it completed is very unlikely.”

The plan for a modification to Highway 1 was a recommended change to the area looking forward, he said.

“It’s a phase of the plan which is beyond the scope of the actual study,” he said. “There’s a series of recommendations or suggestions we hope to see in the future, such as the over- or underpass, and it’s  a little unclear how much that would cost.”

There is already an underpass on Highway 1 that golfers use in their carts, however, said Plater. There’s a possibility that it may be modified to accommodate a creek.

Also, if Caltrans's plans to widen or modify Highway 1 to lessen congestion on that road goes through, it may be the right moment to install an under- or overpass, said Plater.

The San Francisco mayor’s office said it received Wild Equity’s letter and report but have not yet responded as to whether they’ve read it yet. 

Attached are a chart showing the breakdown of costs of the new proposal and the study itself.