Activists - Coasts - California

	Sierra Club California Main
	California Coasts Main

	Victories
	Special Coastal Places
	HotBox Issues
	Local Chapters
	2008 Vote Chart
	2008 Vote Chart Press Release
	2007 Vote Chart
	2006 Vote Chart
	2005 Vote Chart
	2004 Vote Chart
	2003 Vote Chart
	2002 Vote Chart
	2001 Vote Chart
	2000 Vote Chart
	Report: "No Day at the Beach"

	Email Newsletters:
	California CoastWatcher
	California Legislative Alerts

Todd Cardiff: Coastal Activist in the Spotlight

Todd Cardiff and sidekick Todd Cardiff started working to protect Califronia's coast in the 1990s. Joining Surfrider as a way to meet other surfers, he quickly got caught up in the effort to protect threatened beaches. Todd's environmental work began against the UNOCAL Corporation, which had leaked millions of gallons of petroleum on Guadalupe and Avila beaches near his home of San Luis Obispo. This was just the beginning, and it led to a campaign and a single moment that dramatically changed Todd's life.

The campaign was working to save San Simeon Point from the Hearst Corporation, the same effort that led to the birth of the Sierra Club's Great Coastal Places Campaign; the moment was listening to Sierra Club Coastal Director Mark Massara speak to a packed auditorium of dejected local residents who thought they were about to lose this amazing section of their beautiful coast to a luxury resort development.

"Mark Massara made an incredible speech. It was so inspiring," Todd said. "Imagine a whole community crammed into a gym … all to fight the planned Hearst monstrosity." The mood was decidedly glum before Mark came forward, and then Todd could feel the change in the crowd. "It was really amazing what one man's influence can do. I don't remember the words themselves so much, but the incredible turnaround in my own feelings and what appeared to be the crowd's feelings…The speech that Mark gave showed me what an attorney could do for the environmental movement. It was one of my inspirations for going to law school."

Now a respected attorney himself, Todd dedicates himself to fighting seawall construction. Seawalls, which devastate beaches and actually speed erosion of cliffs on either side of the seawall, already cover more than 100 miles of California's coast. "If you put a seawall on an eroding shoreline, (and they rarely are put anywhere else)," Todd said, "you eventually will lose the beach. You end up with waves lapping against the seawall, with no public access."

On October 6, 2003, Todd Cardiff, along with Marco Gonzalez, chair of the San Diego Chapter of the Surfrider Foundation, filed a lawsuit challenging the California Coastal Commission's approval of a seawall for a newly built mansion in Pismo Beach. If successful, the lawsuit will have a dramatic impact on coastal development.

Seawall devastation is a hard concept for people to grasp, but Todd is starting to get the message out. Following in the footsteps of Massara, who first inspired him, Todd is now an example in his own right of how much one person can do for coastal protection.

Read about other coastal activists.