"The ranger showed us how to sweep the sand with paint brushes and find little fossils--the kids loved it! Although you're not allowed to take them, it's a park. Next time we go we'll take our own brushes," said Julie Wallace of Auburn, whose eight-year-old granddaughter is gravely ill. After monthly treatments with an experimental drug in San Francisco, they take her and three other grandchildren for a walk along a beach. "We have a lot of fun, it is very healing," she said. Her husband, George, added: "For us inlanders, the beach is a place to relax."
--Interview by Don Nierlich

This issue of Coast & Ocean is unlike any other we have published. We have focused on a single topic: Californians' relationships with their beaches. But rather than seeking out land managers, scholars, or community leaders to find out what we wanted to know, we went directly to folks who aren't usually interviewed on this or any other subject. The Wallaces were among them. What pollsters have found again and again is confirmed by people we met along the shore and on the street. Only some of what we heard fit into this issue, but it's representative.

Last February, a survey by the Public Policy Institute of California found that an overwhelming number of adults throughout the state (87 percent of a sample of 2,003) said candidates' positions on the environment and coast would be important in the November gubernatorial elections. Nine out of ten Californians said the quality of the beach and ocean is just as important to them personally as the overall quality of life and economy of the state. "Californians treasure the ocean and the state's beaches," said Mark Baldassare, who conducted the survey. "These attitudes run deep and wide, across political parties, coastal and inland areas, and in the growing Latino population." In fact, Latinos were more likely than whites (60 percent versus 44 per cent) to say the environmental policies of gubernatorial candidates are very important to them.

In this issue of Coast & Ocean we flesh out those statistics with some voices and faces.

Heidi Walters of the North Coast Journal went to the mouth of the Klamath River to talk with some Yuroks, who have an ancient connection with their coast. Arienne Kozak, a photographer and writer, spent time with vacationing RV campers at Dockweiler State Beach in Los Angeles, where they found peace and relaxation despite the roar of airplanes overhead. Photographer David Maung talked with some folks in San Diego, while Coastwalker Don Nierlich brought back interviews from Santa Monica and Santa Barbara. And Shirley Skeel, who works primarily in radio, wandered through many places in the San Francisco Bay Area and spoke with people from many parts of the state and from abroad. She also produced the "sound postcard" on this website.

This special issue comes at a time when Californians will be making decisions about measures that would affect the future of their coast. Proposition 84, a $5.4 billion bond measure, is on the November ballot. It would provide funds to ensure the availability and safety of drinking water, improve the reliability of local water supplies, strengthen levees, and preserve natural landscapes, including parks, lakes, rivers, beaches, bays, ocean, and coastline.

We'll be back to you soon with our next issue, which will, as usual, feature a range of articles on coastal concerns. Among them is desalination, a hot subject right now, with several projects moving forward. Whether these projects would benefit or harm the coast, and whether they are needed now, are matters of intense debate.

Also in the works are articles that emerged from CWO '06, the conference on California and the World Ocean held in September in Long Beach. New research and technology is opening access to previously unknown or inaccessible ocean resources and a race is on to use and exploit them, in both state and in federal waters. Should decommissioned offshore oil platforms be removed, as the law now requires, or should they, or some of them, be converted to other uses? Should Navy ships be sunk offshore to become diving platforms for sports fishermen? Should there be liquid natural gas (LNG) facilities offshore? How about offshore wind farms and solar energy generators? Would the presence of one kind of facility foreclose options for others that might benefit the people of California more? Without preliminary planning and ocean zoning, sound decisions will be tough to make. And yet, how do you plan for technology that is not yet well developed? We hope to contribute to the discussion. Meanwhile, please enjoy some lighter fare, in this issue.

--Rasa Gustaitis