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San Francisco Chronicle​

Crews remove 4,000 pounds of trash from Richardson Bay, once home to boat dwellers

A shopping cart, an electric keyboard, two small boats, a PlayStation and an electric foot massager — these were among the 4,000 pounds of trash removed from Richardson Bay last week as part of a weeklong marine debris removal project. The cleanup came months after the last of 240 anchor-out boats were removed from the bay, capping off a long, contentious battle the Richardson Bay Regional Agency had with boat dwellers who had refused to leave. The agency, along with partners, cleaned up about one acre of the waterway between Sausalito and Tiburon. Workers also removed garden tools, batteries, outbound engines and portable generators, anchors and anchor chain and tarps. 'Sadly, I am not surprised at the amount of debris and discarded items that we removed from the Bay floor, below where vessels were at anchor for years,' the agency's executive director Brad Gross said in a statement. The two tons of waste also included a microwave, various sports equipment, glass bottles, fuel containers, hand saw, a floor lamp, a fishing net and several sheets of plexiglass. Workers, including scuba divers and experts, focused their clean-up effort on the Richardson Bay Eelgrass Protection Zone, an area on the western side of the bay, extending north toward Mill Valley. The zone, which is newly off limits to anchoring boats, was launched on Oct. 30 to help restore the growth of eelgrass, 'a critical ecological component of the Bay,' the agency said. Eelgrass is a plant that grows on the ocean floor, and is key to 'healthy and vibrant' waterways like Richardson Bay, the agency said. Eelgrass reduces erosion and captures carbon, as well as serving as a resource for harbor seals, sea lions and other marine creatures, the agency said. Environmentalists working to restore the eelgrass zone said that removing debris is a key first step before being able to replant eelgrass across the more than 300 acres of the former anchoring area. The removal of 'anchor outs' came after a yearslong battle between the Richardson Bay Regional Agency and occupants of the vessels, which numbered as many as 240 about 10 years ago. The agency said that the number of illegally anchored boats in the zone was down to about 20 in October. 'This is just the tip of the iceberg,' Keith Merkel, a worker on the project, said in a statement. 'We have had divers working in the water here for years as part of our eelgrass restoration efforts, and we've seen that the Bay floor is littered in this kind of debris.' Merkel said that while they hope to restore eelgrass this summer to areas that have had debris removed, he hopes that the whole 300-acre zone is able to be cleaned of its 'many, many tons of debris.' The agency said the growth of eelgrass is inhibited by anchors and chains scraping the bottom of the bay, creating barren 'crop circles' and acting 'as a lawn mover for all living plants.' 'Despite years of environmental degradation, eelgrass has shown remarkable resilience and ability to recover as abandoned and derelict vessels are removed from the Bay,' Rebecca Schwartz Lesberg, president of Coastal Policy Solutions, said in a statement. The cleanup is part of the plan by the Richardson Bay Regional Agency to restore at least 15 acres of eelgrass by 2027, in partnership with San Francisco State University's Estuary and Ocean Science Center in Tiburon, Audubon California, Merkel and Associates and Coastal Policy Solutions. The agency said nine acres have already been restored. 'It's great to see such meaningful progress in restoring the health of Richardson Bay,' Stephanie Moulton-Peters, a board member for the agency and Marin County Supervisor, said in a statement. 'The removal of over two tons of debris from the Eelgrass Protection Zone is a major step toward protecting this vital habitat for generations to come.'