Ex-Presidio Dump Now a Park

Andrew Morrison remembers the rudest days at Crissy Field, when the sliver of waterfront land in the shadow of the Golden Gate Bridge was an asphalt-covered military junkyard--a blemish on the face of a world-class city.

On his weekend in-line skating jaunts, he glided past an abandoned Army airstrip, fuel depot and toxic dump, over crumbled concrete and alongside rusting chain-link fences. And he wondered how this precious landscape, with its breathtaking panorama of San Francisco Bay and the city skyline, could be thrown away.

“It’s an incredibly beautiful place,” Morrison said of the 100-acre site, once part of the Army’s historic Presidio military base. “And they had turned it into a construction zone.”

Then Morrison got a chance to help make a poignant civic statement unusual even in this activist-heavy city.

After the Army handed over the Presidio to the National Park Service in 1994, officials began a project unlike any other in the agency’s history: returning Crissy Field to its natural state.

Park officials in 1998 posted fliers soliciting help in transforming the neglected former airstrip into a park with wind-blown meadows, sand dunes and a crowning 18-acre tidal marsh.

Morrison was among a battalion of 4,000 Bay Area volunteers who carried out what officials call the biggest job the Park Service has ever undertaken to improve an outdoor space.

Now those weekend warriors who donated thousands of hours--weeding, planting, pushing wheelbarrows laden with heavy sand--will get an emotional payday after three years of labor. Park planners officially reopened the bayside showpiece of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area.

“How many times do you get the chance to help turn back the hands of time?” asked Morrison, 48, who manages a local bed and breakfast. “When can you reverse the terrible damage we’ve done to Mother Nature by taking a toxic dump and creating a habitat for birds and animals? For me, that’s heady stuff.”

Heady as well for park officials.

Funded entirely by donations from the public, the $34-million Crissy Field project is among the largest privately financed restorations in Park Service history. Of 2,400 donations, 2,200 came as checks for $100 or less. The project was boosted by a $16-million gift from the Haas family, owners of San Francisco-based Levi-Strauss Co.

Greg Moore, executive director of the Golden Gate National Parks Assn., the nonprofit group that organized the renovation, calls Crissy San Francisco’s field of dreams, but with a twist: They had to come before it could be built.

The volunteers came from churches, neighborhoods, schools and nonprofit groups. They scoured area beaches to collect 100,000 native plant seeds--covering 73 species--and raised the seedlings in nearby greenhouses. They grew verbena, yarrow, pickleweed and other hardy coastal flora in restored sand dunes.

They also planted 130,000 plugs of salt grass for the park’s 28-acre meadow, which replaced the old airstrip, and helped move 230,000 cubic yards of soil to make way for the tidal marsh. They also counted the 123 species of birds.

“What we had was a diamond in the rough with lots of room for polishing,” said Moore. “People gave their time and money because they had a vision of what this place could be. And we all know that had we waited for federal dollars, this would not have happened.”

For years, Crissy Field had suffered a slow decline.

Early in the 20th century, the Army created a bayside storage area when tons of rubble from the 1906 earthquake was dumped into the salt marshes.

Named for Maj. Dana H. Crissy, a pilot who made early transcontinental flights, the air base was built in 1919. It became obsolete in the 1930s, after the Golden Gate Bridge was completed and takeoffs and landings became perilous.

Later the area became a fuel depot, a toxic dump and a home for spare vehicles and garbage.

“For the military, the waterfront was considered its backyard junkyard,” said Moore. “But for San Franciscans, this place is a prized frontyard.”

The restoration saw the arrival of the second now-volunteer army: teachers, lawyers, people who lived close enough to walk to the park and those who drove there or took the bus.

There were fresh-faced students from 60 local high schools. And, as Morrison tells it, there was also George, an 80-year-old curmudgeon who complained to everyone “but who showed up every Saturday morning, rain or shine.”

Volunteers met new friends with like environmental bents. Said Sharon Tsiu: “We talked, we laughed. We pulled lots of weeds.”

Like others, Tsiu helped out nearly every Saturday for two years. “Believe me, it was hard to get out of bed the first few Saturdays, but then we began to see things changing,” she said. “The things we planted started to grow.”

One Marin County elementary school class showed up to work on the project one weekday morning. Days later, the children sent a $41 check for the cause, pooled from their weekly allowances.

Volunteers also served on an advisory board that oversaw the Army’s toxic cleanup efforts at Crissy Field, prompting military officials to haul away 87,000 tons of hazardous materials instead of the planned 15,000.

Many weekend volunteers jokingly referred to themselves by the acronym DERT--for Dune Ecological Restoration Team.

On a recent afternoon, Moore was stopped by a cyclist along the gravel pedestrian path. “Are you responsible for this?” the man asked.

He was told that 4,000 volunteers had done the job.

“Well, I can’t believe what a change you’ve pulled off,” said Marin County resident Keith Silva. “This place is pure magic. You should all be proud of yourselves.”

Andrew Morrison agrees.

“Every time I see this park, I say to myself, ‘Wow, look what we’ve accomplished here,’ ” he said. “I’m not ashamed to say I’m proud.”