Against these many competitive disadvantages, the Bay 
provides a great amenity and resource. It defines the area as 
special; the water creates vast open space and provides spectac¬ 
ular views. It moderates the climate. It is a great sailing 
Bay. It is a nursery ground for fish. It contains the largest 
contiguous marsh in California, a stopover for many mitigrating 
waterfowl. This resource and the region's other environmental 
advantages are our most important economic asset as well as 
vital to our continued health and welfare. 
Our social and political structure makes it more difficult 
to govern the Bay as a single, interrelated entity. California 
divides resource management by subject matter. There is no 
department of environment or of natural resources. One agency 
regulates air emissions; another controls discharges into the 
Bay; a third decides who may take what freshwater where; a 
fourth regulates fisheries; a fifth administers the state park 
land-use; and a sixth, the Commission, plans for and regulates 
land-use in and along the Bay. Add to this 25 cities with 
councils, administrators, zoning and planning authority and 9 
counties with supervisors, administrators, zoning and planning 
authority. So, special effort must be made in the Bay Area to 
cooperate to assure balance among the various agencies assigned 
to protect natural values. 
Through the 1966-1970 planning period, science always played 
an essential role in defining the resources and describing the 
natural processes. Science has played less of a role recently, 
particularly in the regulatory decisions of the Commission. 
This is because scientific information about the Bay is not or¬ 
ganized comprehensively, because research on the Bay has not 
kept up with efforts made for other important estuaries, because 
some scientific information is readily available in a form that 
is useful to policy-makers and because some essential data about 
the Bay has not been gathered. I believe that during the last 
10 years or so, science has played less of a role in the de¬ 
cisions about the Bay than law, public opinion, politics, and 
economics. 
Lack of comprehensive information, lack of coordination 
among various scientists and organizations doing research on the 
Bay and, failure to provide existing information in a form that 
is useful to managers are the likely reasons science has played 
a smaller role than it should when decisions about the Bay are 
made by the Commission, and I suspect, by other managers of the 
Bay's resources. 
Of course, commissioners vary in their reaction to a situa¬ 
tion in which there may be a threat to the natural values but 
scientists are unable or unwilling to define the extent of the 
threat clearly. In that situation, some commissioners will 
ignore unquantified and unspecific threats. That often means 
140 
