Lopez: In 50-year Fight To Protect California's Coast, They're The Real Mccoys, Still At It In Their 80s - Beritaja

IMPERIAL BEACH, Calif. — Mike and Patricia McCoy answered the doorway of their cozy cottage successful Imperial Beach, a short stroll from crashing waves and respective blocks from the Tijuana River Estuary, wherever California meets Mexico and the hiking trails are named for them.

They offered maine a spot successful a surviving room filled pinch awards for their work and pinch books, immoderate of them about the wonders of the earthy world and the threat to its survival. The McCoys are the benignant of group who look you successful the oculus and springiness you their afloat attention, and Patricia’s British accent carries an upbeat, birdsong tone.

A motion shows coastal conservationists Mike and Patricia McCoy arsenic young adults “Making a Difference” astatine the estuary.

(Hayne Palmour IV / For The Times)

In the agelong history of conservation successful California, fewer person worked arsenic agelong aliases arsenic difficult arsenic the McCoys.

Few person achieved arsenic much.

And they’re still astatine it. Mike astatine 84, Patricia astatine 89.

The McCoys settled successful Imperial Beach successful the early 1970s — Mike was a veterinarian, Patricia a coach — erstwhile the coastal protection movement was spreading crossed the authorities amid fears of overdevelopment and privatization. In 1972, voters approved Proposition 20, which fundamentally laid down a hallmark declaration:

The California seashore is simply a nationalist treasure, not a backstage playground.

Four years later, the Coastal Act became authorities law, regulating improvement successful collaboration pinch section authorities agencies, guaranteeing nationalist entree and protecting marine and coastal habitats.

During that time, the McCoys were locked successful a conflict worthy revisiting now, connected the 50th day of the Coastal Act. There had been talk for years about turning the underappreciated Tijuana River Estuary, portion of which was utilized arsenic a dumping ground, into thing useful.

Mike McCoy knew the about 2,500-acre abstraction was already thing useful, and vitally important. It was 1 of the past awesome undeveloped wetlands successful Southern California and a breeding and feeding tract for 370 vertebrate species, on pinch fish, reptiles, rabbits, foxes, coyotes and different animals.

In McCoy’s mind, it needed to beryllium restored, not repurposed. And surely not arsenic a elephantine marina, which would person destroyed a residence that was location to respective endangered species. At a 1977 Imperial Beach gathering packed pinch marina supporters, Mike McCoy drew his statement successful the sand.

The Tijuana Estuary successful Imperial Beach is seen connected Friday.

(Hayne Palmour IV / For The Times)

“I went up there,” McCoy recalled, pausing to opportunity he could still consciousness the power of the moment, “and I said, ‘You people, and I don’t attraction who you are, you’re not going to put a marina successful that estuary. That’s sacrosanct. You don’t messiness pinch that. That’s a awesome system, and it’s much analyzable than you’d ever believe.’”

The estuary won, but the McCoys weren’t done. As I began talking pinch them about the years of defense that followed, Patricia’s modesty blushed.

“We don’t want to beryllium blowing our ain trumpet,” she said.

They don’t person to. I’m doing it for them, pinch the thief of admirers who were happy to subordinate the symphony.

Patricia went connected to go a personnel of the Imperial Beach City Council and served for 2 years connected the Coastal Commission, which oversees implementation of the Coastal Act. She besides helped Mike and others return the estuary restoration conflict to Sacramento, to Washington, D.C., and to Mexico.

“This is what a existent powerfulness mates looks like,” said Sarah Christie, legislative head of the Coastal Commission. “They wield the powerfulness of quality and the powerfulness of the people. You can’t overstate their publication to coastal protection.”

The McCoys’ signature accomplishment has been twofold, said Jeff Crooks, a San Diego wetlands expert. They helped found the estuary arsenic a protected wildlife refuge, and they besides helped build the model for the estuary to service arsenic a investigation halfway to monitor, negociate and sphere the residence and collaborate pinch different managed estuaries successful the U.S.

“It’s been a surviving laboratory for 40-some years,” said Crooks, investigation coordinator for the Tijuana River National Estuarine Research Reserve.

Sewage and debris travel from Tijuana are an ever-present threat and decades-long root of vexation and anger successful Imperial Beach, wherever beaches person been closed and immoderate residents person planted “Stop the Stink” gait signs. Crooks said there’s been immoderate advancement connected infrastructure improvements, pinch a agelong measurement to go.

Coastal conservationist Mike McCoy looks astatine a caller interpretive motion astatine the Tijuana Estuary successful Imperial Beach connected Friday.

(Hayne Palmour IV / For The Times)

But “even though we’re beating it up,” Crooks said of the contamination flowing into the estuary, it’s been amazingly resilient successful portion because of changeless monitoring and management.

Chris Peregrin, who manages the Tijuana Estuary for the authorities parkland system, said the nonprofit Tijuana Estuary Foundation has been a bully partner, and the president of the instauration committee is conjecture who:

Mike McCoy.

The instauration ”fills gaps that the authorities cannot,” Peregrin said. “As 1 example, they tally the investigation programme astatine the reserve.”

For each their continued passion about the ngo successful their ain backyard, the McCoys fret about the bigger image — the alarming summation successful greenhouse gases and the biodiversity decline. Through the estuary window, they spot a satellite successful peril.

“They some deliberation large for illustration that,” Crooks said. “Mike particularly comes from the mindset that this is simply a ‘think globally and enactment locally’ benignant of thing.”

“Restoration is the sanction of the game, not intrusion,” Mike told me, and he wasn’t talking conscionable about the estuary.

On the very week I visited the McCoys, the Trump management delivered a crushing blow to the biology movement, repealing a authorities uncovering that greenhouse state contamination is simply a threat to the satellite and nationalist health. He called those claims, backed by overwhelming technological consensus, “a elephantine scam.”

It’s easy to propulsion up your hands astatine specified knuckle-dragging indifference, and Mike told maine he has to support reaching for much stamina.

But Serge Dedina, a erstwhile Imperial Beach politician who was inspired by the McCoys’ activism arsenic a youngster, sees caller generations bringing caller power to the fight. Many of them activity pinch him astatine Wildcoast, the world coastal conservation nonprofit he founded, pinch Patricia McCoy among his earliest collaborators.

“I wouldn’t beryllium a conservationist and coastal activistic without having worked pinch Patricia and Mike and being infused pinch their passion,” said Dedina. ”I deliberation sometimes they underestimate their legacy. They’ve had a immense effect connected a full procreation of scientists and conservationists and group who are doing activity each on the coast.”

We can’t underestimate the bequest of the national uprising of 1972, on pinch the creation of an agency dedicated to coastal conservation. But it’s only adjacent to note, connected the 50th day of the Coastal Act, that not everyone will beryllium reaching for a statement hat.

The Coastal Act has been aggressively enforced, astatine times to a responsibility successful the sentiment of developers, homeowners, commercialized interests and immoderate politicians. Former Gov. Jerry Brown, who signed the enactment into law, erstwhile referred to Coastal Commission agency staffers arsenic “bureaucratic thugs” for tight restrictions connected development.

There’s been changeless friction, acknowledgment successful portion to governmental unit and the clout of developers, and 1 of the galore early threats to the halfway ngo is the request for much lodging passim the state. The equilibrium betwixt caller building and continued conservation is sure to spark years of skirmishes.

Coastal conservationists Mike and Patricia McCoy connected a way named aft them astatine the Tijuana Estuary Visitor Center successful Imperial Beach.

(Hayne Palmour IV / For The Times)

But arsenic the Coastal Commission website puts it successful marking the anniversary, the major achievements of the past 50 years see the “wetlands not filled, the delicate habitats not destroyed, the entree trails not blocked, the farms and ranches not converted to municipality uses, the freeways and gated communities and business accommodation not built.”

In the words of the precocious Peter Douglas, who co-authored Proposition 20 and later served arsenic executive head of the Coastal Commission, the seashore is ne'er saved, it’s ever being saved.

Saved by the likes of Mike and Patricia McCoy.

I had the pleasance of stepping done the estuary pinch Mike, past the plaque dedicated to him and his woman and “all who cherish wildlife and the Tijuana Estuary.” We besides came upon 1 of the caller interpretive signs that were to beryllium dedicated Friday, including 1 pinch a photograph of Mike and Patricia arsenic young adults “Making a Difference.”

Mike pointed a digit present and there, explaining each the conservation projects done the year. We saw an egret and a rabbit, and erstwhile I heard a clacking sound, Mike brightened.

“That’s a clapper rail,” Mike said, an endangered vertebrate that makes its location successful the estuary.

The blowing of the trumpet isn’t conscionable for the McCoys.

It’s a rallying telephone to those who mightiness travel successful their footsteps.

steve.lopez@beritaja.com