Saluting a Pioneering Environmentalist

Decades before voter initiatives joined death and taxes as the only certainties in California, Ellen Stern Harris invited a group of environmental activists concerned about rapid growth along the state’s coastline to sit around her dining table and fashion the framework for Proposition 20.

They faced what seemed like insurmountable odds at the time, but the coalition succeeded in passing the proposition, giving birth to the watershed Coastal Act of 1972 and the California Coastal Commission to control development along the state’s iconic oceanfront.

On Saturday evening, a handful of those who have worked with Harris met at her home again, this time to reminisce and pay tribute for what they say has been years of effort and vision. Harris is now battling cancer, but the gathering seemed to invigorate her and served as a reminder of how far-reaching the initiative she helped inspire has become. The Coastal Commission oversees 1,100 miles of shoreline, issuing building permits and regulating port expansion.

“The California coast would not look the way it does without her efforts,” said Susan Jordan, executive director of the California Coastal Protection Network, who attended the party. “We’d all be living in a very different place if it wasn’t for her.”

Harris, 76, said the disease has weakened her physically, but she still maintained her famed biting wit for her guests. She gave no hint she would let up in her quest for environmental conservation with her current nonprofit group, the Fund for the Environment.

“I’m watching all these cases and I think we need to do a preemptive strike,” Harris said with her raspy voice while discussing a beach that was shut off to the public. Looking resplendent in a peach hat, Harris easily switched the conversation about naval sonar and whales to the origin of the chocolate cheesecake and the $2 Shiraz she was serving.

Harris began her activism in the 1950s when she sought to restore trees in Beverly Hills. She was later asked by former Los Angeles Mayor Sam Yorty to organize the city’s 87th birthday. She used the occasion to hold a conference on natural beauty, an issue inspired at the time by First Lady Lady Bird Johnson.

That would lead her to efforts to save the Santa Monica Mountains and then a position with the Regional Water Quality Control Board. But what triggered Proposition 20, she said, was a drive through Malibu with her children.

“We couldn’t see the ocean or hear the ocean” because of all the development, Harris said. “It became obvious to me that we had to do something.”

When Harris and her fellow activists embarked on the campaign, people were dismayed by housing construction that blocked off scenic beaches in Malibu and Sea Ranch in Sonoma County.

“People were coming out of schools understanding there was a need to conserve resources,” said Lorell Long, who led the Environmental Coalition of Orange County when she joined with Harris to push Proposition 20.

After a bitter campaign in which the environmentalists were outspent 9 to 1 by the developers, oil companies and unions that opposed the initiative, Californians voted in favor of Proposition 20, 55.1% to 44.9%.

“We did it on $100,000 and we had money left over,” said Don May, president of the California Earth Corps, who was called in to help Harris because he had worked on voter initiatives in the state as early as the 1950s.

Today, Harris laments what she feels are the mixed results of the Coastal Commission, an organization in which she served as a vice chairwoman during its first four years. Against the wishes of environmentalists, the commission allowed the construction of the San Onofre nuclear reactors; its staff was nearly cut in half in the 1980s by an unsupportive Gov. George Deukmejian; and in the early 1990s a commission member admitted to soliciting $1 million from people seeking coastal building permits.

Harris and her supporters Saturday said the commission was flawed, but its initial goals were virtuous and, in many ways, a product of Harris’ idealism and tenacity. Assemblyman Pedro Nava (D-Santa Barbara) recalled the first time he met Harris in 1997, when he was a member of the Coastal Commission.

“I was absolutely enchanted by her,” he said, shortly before presenting Harris with a plaque from the Assembly, recognizing her activism. “She’s passionate, vibrant and intelligent. I can see how people could be overwhelmed by her. Part of Ellen’s art is that she’s witty and has a piercing sense of humor. It makes you feel welcome, even if she’s working against you.”