McLaughlin Eastshore State Park: 8.5 miles of reclaimed shoreline, and the Save the Bay fight that created it

Driving Interstate 80 between Oakland and Richmond, you're never far from McLaughlin Eastshore State Park. It is one of the most unusual parks in the state system. California State Parks says it covers tidelands and uplands along 8.5 miles of San Francisco Bay shoreline, from Richmond to near the east anchorage of the Bay Bridge. Much of the dry land is fill dumped into the bay west of the original shoreline.

The pieces

Wikipedia lists the park's parts as Point Isabel, Albany Beach and its bird preserve (but not the Albany Bulb), the North Basin Strip, Berkeley Meadow, Brickyard Cove and the Emeryville Crescent. In all it covers 1,854 acres. The state also names the Albany Mudflat and Hoffman Marsh among its tidelands. No single road runs the length of the park. State Parks says the San Francisco Bay Trail will connect all of it once finished. The East Bay Regional Park District runs the park under a 30-year agreement with the state.

The fight for the shore

In the 1960s, Sylvia McLaughlin helped found what became Save the Bay, alarmed by trash and fill along the East Bay shore. Much of the waterfront belonged to the Santa Fe railway and its real estate arm, Catellus. They proposed a regional shopping center on landfill in Berkeley and high-rises over the Emeryville wetlands, a plan locals called "stilt city." Wikipedia recounts that Berkeley voted down the shopping center in 1972, and Santa Fe lost its lawsuit over it in 1980. Catellus kept fighting in court until 1990.

In 1998, voters approved state and regional bonds that raised $40 million to buy land. Catellus had asked $80 million for the old Santa Fe tract but settled for $27.5 million after the park district threatened eminent domain. The state approved a general plan for the park in December 2002. In October 2012, the park was renamed to honor McLaughlin.

Birds and marsh

The park's tidal marshes and mudflats feed shorebirds and waterfowl. Wikipedia cites a summer survey that found 46 bird species at the park, the most of three East Bay sites studied, with American white pelicans and American coots among the most abundant. Native plants include coyote brush, saltgrass, California sea lavender and Pacific cordgrass. Planners describe the Emeryville Crescent's marsh as a "living shoreline" that helps slow erosion near the freeway.

Rules

State Parks says it is illegal to collect or destroy anything in the park, mushrooms included.

Related: our Point Isabel dog park guide.