Albany Bulb

Yesterday I was told by someone who I’m assuming was with Animal Rescue (official looking with a large net) walking up the trails. We crossed paths and he told me he was there because there was calls of birds washing up from the bay oil spill.” A word of warning, I wouldn’t let my dogs swim in that water”. A little late for us – Toby and Cody had already taken their morning swim but I thought I’d do my good deed for the day and tell the few people with their dogs that were still on the beach. I wasn’t surprised when they sort of shrugged off my words of caution. They didn’t see any oil. Everything looked fine. Today was another story!

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The history of the Bulb dates to the 1890s, when Santa Fe, under the guise of the Berkeley Waterfront Company, bought up large portions of the Albany, Berkeley, and Emeryville shorelines. These lands remained largely undeveloped until the Golden Gate Turf Club built a racetrack on land leased from Santa Fe; Golden Gate Fields opened in 1947. By the mid-1950s, approximately 2,000 acres of fill had been dumped along the shore. The odd bulb-shaped landfill jutting into the Bay arose from a contract signed in 1963 by the city of Albany and Santa Fe for disposal of debris from construction and freeway projects. Citizen opposition to the dumping began almost immediately and continued through the 1980s. The dumping finally ended in 1987 as a result of lawsuits against the landfill operator and a successful campaign to include the newly created land and shoreline in the proposed Eastshore State Park. <

Persis M. Karim, Bay Nature (July – Sept. 2002) . http://www.baynature.com/2002julysept/ott_2002julysept.html