By Myrna Hayes
Solano Group
During the San Francisco Bay Flyway Festival in 2007, Myrna Hayes and a group of volunteers, along with the U.S. Navy and its contractors, opened the former Naval Ammunition Depot on Mare Island in Vallejo to the public for the first time in 150 years.
One year later, Hayes and her fellow volunteers established the Mare Island Shoreline Heritage Preserve, through an informal agreement with the City of Vallejo. Shortly thereafter, they founded the Mare Island Heritage Trust, a nonprofit organization, that operated and maintained the Preserve on behalf of the City of Vallejo for 12 years until September 2019, when the city dismissed the Trust from managing the land and closed the Preserve.
The Preserve consists of 130 acres on the southern end of Mare Island and is owned by the State of California and granted for management to the City of Vallejo. It is expected to expand up to as much as 300 acres after additional acreage is transferred to the state and city from the U.S. Navy. The 2007 Mare Island Specific Plan designates the Preserve for recreational purposes and open space.
The land is considered a historically endowed site, and it includes munitions storage magazines built 165 years ago, some of the oldest homes on Mare Island and the U. S. Navy’s oldest cemetery in the Pacific. The National Park Service designated Mare Island as a National Historic Landmark for representing a century and half of both American military history and the maritime heritage of the United States. But it also contains vast natural habitats and a summit of panoramic vistas that spans seven counties and creates stellar views of Mt. Tamalpais and Mt. Diablo and the East Bay hills. Inlets and surrounding salt marshes protect rare plants and habitat. Shorelines, piers, wetlands, coastal chaparral and grasslands attract and support a wide diversity of wildlife.
During the 12 years the Trust operated the Preserve, countless visitors enjoyed the open space by hiking, camping, bird watching, attending numerous events and taking in the impressive vistas.
When the city dismissed the Trust’s oversight of the Preserve, a move that was led by the now-former city manager, the Preserve was closed to the public for more than a year. This was a blow to Hayes and the many members of the public who regularly utilized the Preserve in a mostly urban area that has little access to parks, open space and wildland.
City officials stated the closure was for the public’s safety, citing fire hazards resulting from a 40-acre grass and brush fire which did no structural damage to the visitor center or any other buildings.
When the Preserve reopened in late 2020, the city public works department assumed management and downgraded the Preserve from a very active wildlands community to jogging trail status. With the dismissal of the Trust managers, users of the Preserve lost their visitor center and campfire, camping, concerts, seasonal gatherings, lighted holiday trail walks, Fourth of July fireworks viewing, lunar eclipse watching, art shows, weddings, educational visits by school groups, and all-evening access to view sunsets and moonrises, as well as nighttime owl and snake outings.
The public works department destroyed as many as 500 native coast live oak and a variety of native trees thought to have been planted by Native Californians for foraging in an area with a known year-round seep. The free-flowing drainage was undergrounded. Hundreds of mature cultural landscape trees planted as many as 160 years ago were cut. Native grasses, which can live for as many as 100 years, and stands of coast sage and toyon were bladed away and replaced with invasive, non-native oxtails. An unknown number of nesting wildlife have been harmed or forced to seek new nesting sites. Rare rattlesnakes found nowhere else in the state have been actively hunted and killed. Documented mature collections of Native American planted forage crops and native plants used for medicinal and ceremonial purposes were removed. Historic remnants of the bucolic life lived by Navy civilian personnel were broadly destroyed, as were $45,000 worth of information, wayfinding and safety signs. Most astonishing to the Trust, was that an estimated $60,000 worth of donated and purchased park operations equipment and supplies were also destroyed in almost a frenzy of wanton destruction.
A very rare, intact Bay Model, pre-dating the Bay Model at Sausalito, came within inches of being destroyed by heavy equipment.
These activities were carried out by unskilled and unqualified personnel with no planning, public review or professional oversight. The irreparable damage has threatened the unique assembly of natural and cultural history present at the Preserve. Due to the highly restrictive hours of operation—just 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. on the weekends—the public cannot enjoy sunset views or the moonrise over the Napa River. More disturbing, is that the once fully accessible parkland, is not accessible now, to those with mobility challenges because the entrance gate has been chained off in such a way that wheelchairs can no longer access the main paved trail through the trailhead. A large chain and bollards placed in the middle of the trail block placard-displaying vehicle access.
And, since the entire property is left unattended during open hours, safety has decreased, resulting in motorcyclists driving through the Preserve and theft in the parking area.
Additionally, the new owner of an adjacent former 170-acre golf course, the Nimitz Group, has taken steps on a number of occasions to seemingly seize at least 20 acres of the Preserve by repeatedly posting no-trespassing signs and placing barricades and fencing well within the boundaries of the wildlands park.
Nimitz Group closed the golf course and has expressed intent to re-zone the land from open space to residential use. The Nimitz Group has also purchased about 500 acres of the historic naval shipyard, which closed in 1996, and has gotten the blessing of the city council to purchase another 157 acres adjacent to State Route 37 currently owned by the city.
While the city may find benefits in dealing with but one developer for the entire Island, this “land assemblage” by a sole entity—of as much as 850 acres, the majority of developable land on Mare Island—is worrisome to many in the community and beyond who are concerned with Nimitz Group’s lack of engagement with the current residents of the Island and the larger community of Vallejo. Other key concerns are:
- The impact infusion of possibly thousands of additional vehicle miles traveled into the Highway 37 mix.
- Apparent disregard for the protection of the Mare Island Shoreline Heritage Preserve.
- A commitment to ensuring continued protection of the island’s vast wetland mosaic, home to endangered species and critical wildlife corridors from northern Sonoma and Napa counties onto Mare Island.
- A lack of priority for local job-generation within its development future.
- And a healthy range of all types of housing.
After staking claim to a majority of the Island in 2019, the Nimitz Group and its partner, the Southern Land Company, based in Nashville, TN, has not yet demonstrated that it is a good match for the fragile historic and natural resource-rich regional treasure. Sierra Club believes that opportunities have not been considered island-wide, to designate significant acreage of the island for wetland restoration or conservation in the State of California’s 30 x 30 initiative and to aggressively plan to ameliorate sea level rise and climate change in development scenarios.
Sierra Club Solano Group and Redwood Chapter stand beside the Mare Island Heritage Trust in its bid to return as the operating land trust of the Preserve and to re-establish its “wildlands community” style management.
To date, an online petition in support of the Trust’s return has garnered more than 9,600 signatures; an additional 1,000 hand-signed signatures were gathered in the early months following the city’s closure. Once 10,000 signatures are gathered online, the Trust will ask the Vallejo City Council to return the Preserve to its management. The petition can be found and shared at www.mareislandpreserve.com
Now is the time to engage the community and the region to make certain that Mare Island will serve the highest and best purpose for not only the community of Vallejo, but the larger region. Not only is Mare Island designated as a National Historic Landmark by the National Park Service, but thousands of acres of “public trust” lands are required to be managed for the benefit of all Californians. We have a special duty to plan for and steward the island now and into the future in a way that resonates with the land, the resources and the people.
Myrna Hayes is a member of the Sierra Club Solano Group and represents the Redwood Chapter on the 3-Chapter Sea Level Rise Committee. She is president of the Mare Island Heritage Trust, the co-founder/host of the San Francisco Bay Flyway Festival. She has served as the community co-chair of the Mare Island Naval Shipyard Restoration Advisory Board, tasked with oversight of the environmental cleanup of the former Navy base, since April 1994. In 2003, the Mayor of Vallejo appointed her to a 35-person Regional Park Taskforce.