that an application is approved or less stringent policy lan¬ 
guage is adopted. An applicant usually has factual support for 
this application and is willing to spend the money and effort it 
takes to produce the scientific information needed. The scien¬ 
tific community is often in that position. Unless scientists 
can provide reasonable assurance that a specific harm will 
result unless a restrictive policy is adopted, the Commission 
may prefer to err on the side of those affected by the 
restriction. 
Recently and frequently for matters before the Commission, 
scientists have said there is little data relevant to the 
question before the Commission. Or they state that the data 
that is available has been brought into question and may not 
provide a reliable basis for a decision. Or they say that the 
only scientific opinion available has been extrapolated from 
other areas which may or may not relate well to the Bay. But 
commissioners must nevertheless decide. If scientists say they 
cannot help much and decisions must be made, the Commission is 
forced to deal with less than a full deck. 
As Mike Josselyn has pointed out, coastal managers must have 
easy access to scientific information. For San Francisco Bay, 
there is a large number of academic and scientific institutions 
that do various types of research on various aspects of the Bay. 
It is not always easy to discover who has what information. We 
need a clearinghouse or scientific forum that can coordinate the 
various studies, share information among scientists, and inform 
managers and the public about research, available data, and new 
conclusions about the Bay. 
As important as providing a clearinghouse, we need scienti¬ 
fic information written for the non-scientist. The non-scien¬ 
tists must be able to understand what the information means and 
must be able to know why the information is important. If the 
information is presented in a way that is too difficult for the 
layman to understand, it is unlikely that decision-makers or the 
public will either appreciate the importance of the research or 
apply it to the decisions they must make. 
Now, I'd like to talk about two specific areas of concern 
the Commission has been working on where science has played an 
important part. First, mitigation. Mitigation means many 
things to different people. For the Commission, mitigation 
means the addition to or restoration of an area to wetland 
value. It does not mean buying out of harm that a project could 
avoid. Nor does it mean that projects that otherwise do not 
meet the requirements of our policies can be approved if mitiga¬ 
tion is provided. A project must first meet the requirements of 
our law and Plan; it must be designed to have the least possible 
adverse will, nevertheless, have adverse impacts on natural 
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