Court should take new look at Bahia

Editorial
Tuesday, December 6, 2005

MOST ROAD maps of Marin show Novato's Bahia neighborhood on the northwest corner of town, right next to the Petaluma River. The maps show a lagoon stretching past many Bahia homes to the river.

Those maps are out of date; the lagoon hasn't been dredged since 1987. The lagoon is largely dry land today. Old piers and decaying docks that once ran from back doors to boats now lead to mudflats and grass tufts.

The Bahia Homeowners Association has been under court order to dredge the lagoon since 1992 and, for many years, the association was run by a court-appointed master.

A recent poll by the homeowners association now finds that a majority of homeowners no longer want the lagoon to be dredged. That is a significant shift in sentiment that the court should consider.

The group surveyed 288 homeowners, and 240 responded, with 68 percent saying they opposed the dredging project as it is now proposed.

The main reason is that the cost has skyrocketed. The projected cost is now $17 million; homeowners who live "on the water" would pay $90,000 each, while those "off the water" would pay $45,000.

The costs and bureaucratic hurdles confronting dredging have grown dramatically since 1992, when the cost was high enough to prompt homeowners to balk at maintenance dredging.

Even if homeowners wanted the dredging and were willing to pay for it, the project still might not move forward. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has yet to issue a final ruling on the project's potential environmental impact. The service has hinted that it will not approve dredging. An endangered bird, the California clapper rail, now inhabits the former lagoon, making its home as layers of silt have turned homeowners' backyard into mudflats.

The homeowners, by rejecting the current dredging plans, are wise to recognize that Mother Nature does not want a lagoon at Bahia.

It is time for the court - Marin Superior Court Judge Michael Duficy has been overseeing the case - to reconsider its order for dredging
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The cost simply is too high. If the court determines that the association's survey is valid and that the majority of homeowners say the expense has reached onerous proportions, it's time to reconsider the court order.

It's time to stop forcing a plan that nature continues to fight and neighbors no longer want. The time has come to find another equitable means of resolving this legal dispute.

http://www.marinij.com/editorial/ci_3283631