Army engineers

We spent today with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Sausalito. First at the gigantic working hydraulic Bay Model, with Park Ranger Linda Holm, and then with the Hazard Removal division, which operates the Dillard and Raccoon debris collecting boats. It was a fantastic day and we met some committed Bay heroes, but first I just have to say one thing.

Holy shit the Reber Plan.

From "Report on the Reber Plan and Bay Land Crossing," L.H. Nishkian, 1946

This scheme, first dreamed up in the late 1920s by a theatrical producer named John Reber, would have dammed off San Pablo Bay and the South Bay to create two giant freshwater lakes. It would have filled 20,000 acres of salt water & wetlands and turned what was left of the Bay into a "defensible military installation." Richardson Bay, half paved over, would have become a torpedo base. Corte Madera & Larkspur, completely filled in, a submarine base. Berkeley, Oakland, Alameda... a naval base and industrial park. The southern dam, just below the Bay Bridge, was to carry a 32-lane highway plus two rail lines. That's not a typo: 32 lanes of traffic.

Point San Pablo to Point Pinole was to be filled completely, creating an airport and industrial park bisected by a huge shipping canal. The marina we're floating in right now would be under tarmac.

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers San Francisco Bay Model, Sausalito

This insane plan garnered plenty of political support and was tinkered with for decades. Finally in 1950, Congress authorized $2.5 million to the Army Corps of Engineers to do a definitive comprehensive study - and thus was born the Bay Model. I think it's fair to say that this pre-computer model, housed in an old Liberty Ship facility in Sausalito, is the coolest hand-sculpted 1.5 acre 3-dimensional working hydraulic scale model of a water system ever built, and the only one left of its kind in the world, that is all.

The Reber Plan flunked its study on 99 discrete measures and was put to death in 1963.

More to come in the podcast.