Surfrider Foundation, MAKING WAVES, December 2003

MAKING WAVES, December 2003 issue: Table of Contents

Two Decades of Surfrider
Foundation Advocacy

2003 brought me unique opportunities to see firsthand where our coastal environmental threats run into the "business end" of the Surfrider Foundation.

Recently, in a single 45 day period of my Surfrider Foundation travels, I personally witnessed seawalls swallowing California beaches and affecting surf breaks. I was present while urban runoff closed west coast waters, and I visited the sites of over-development pressure threatening to destroy famous waves and absolutely critical ocean habitat from Rincón, Puerto Rico to Dana Point, California. I motored through the vast reaches and "kills" of the entire New York Harbor complex and saw for myself how the varied and continuous by-products of one of the world's busiest commercial ports quickly end up on some of the east coast's finest surfing beaches.

Witnessing all of that might give rise to a pessimistic view of our future. It doesn't for me. During the same 45-day period, I watched while our activists and national staff conducted the annual Southern California Chapter Training Conference to address the onslaught of seawalls and polluted beaches. Strategies were solidified and enthusiastic warriors left armed for a new fight. I was privileged to see our chapters and staff put on an impressive and multi-faceted presentation before the California Coastal Commission to save Strands Beach in Dana Point. The Commission "saw the light" and gave the problem some more thought and due process. I was fortunate enough to be allowed to sit in on a public briefing, an Informé, by a local Puerto Rican government official, where late in the long tropical evening he announced to the gathered township that he was grateful for the continued presence of the Surfrider Foundation in the community and that he was making the planning of land use as it effects the ocean and precious reefs a top priority of his administration. We will be there to help him. Our related legislation actually passed the Puerto Rican House of Representatives in this same time period, and local citizens are hard at work to finish the law making. And finally, I attended working events for both our Jersey Shore and New York City Chapters. I just don't have the words to tell you the deep and committed strength I felt from the citizen-environmentalists and fellow surfers I met there who are hard at work every day chalking up victories and working to improve the New Jersey/New York coastline.

We are living in tough economic times in the non-profit world, but we are leaving 2003 and closing out 20 years of this work with the healthiest Surfrider Foundation in our history. At the same time we are still able to keep almost 90% of every dollar flowing right to the beach. With a lean national staff providing unprecedented support to our chapters on the west coast, and the real immediate promise of improving that level of service on the east coast, we live with a great opportunity. Many people have worked hard to get us to this place, to this opportunity, where we can continue to build an organization that will be solidly able to navigate through the next 20 years of unimaginable challenge, while building our ranks to influence the society at large. Not too bad.

In whatever form your support of our mission may take, it is unquestionably making a tangible difference here.
I have just seen it, heard it and felt it.

Sincerely,

Christopher J. Evans, Esq. Executive Director

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