Last month, we introduced the Regional Shoreline Adaptation Plan (RSAP), the new regional framework guiding how Bay Area communities plan for rising seas. However, strong regional standards are only the beginning. The real work of putting them into practice will happen locally, city by city and shoreline by shoreline.
That is where you can help.
Earlier this year, the Bay Alive Campaign launched local advocacy teams to monitor sea level rise plans in Loma Prieta Chapter communities and help ensure that natural and nature-based solutions, environmental justice, and long-term climate resilience remain central to the decisions ahead. Bay Alive teams are currently focusing on the following areas:
- South San Mateo County (Belmont, San Carlos, Redwood City, Menlo Park, East Palo Alto),
- Santa Clara County (all shoreline cities),
- City of San Mateo,
- Brisbane, and
- Millbrae and Burlingame.
Get involved today! If you are interested, there is a role for you, from educating community members, to reviewing local plans and policies, to attending public meetings or talking with elected officials. You do not need to be a sea level rise expert. We’re here to help volunteers build the knowledge and tools they need to participate effectively.
Join a local Bay Alive Campaign team today, and help your community rise to the challenge of adapting to a rising tide.
Why Local Advocacy Matters
Under state law, all Bay shoreline jurisdictions must submit a sea level rise adaptation plan by 2034. The Bay Conservation and Development Commission (BCDC) created the RSAP to establish regional guidelines for approval of those plans. Thanks to strong advocacy from the Bay Alive Campaign and other like-minded organizations, the RSAP adopted in late 2024 includes important standards and criteria for protecting natural Bay ecosystems, prioritizing natural and nature-based solutions, addressing groundwater rise and contamination threats, advancing environmental justice, and coordinating adaptation across jurisdictional boundaries.
Those standards give communities a strong foundation for better shoreline planning, but they do not guarantee good outcomes.
The RSAP also provides communities significant flexibility to respond to different shoreline conditions, risks, and needs. That flexibility is important because, as we discussed earlier in this series, every shoreline is different. However, it also means that choices made during local planning will matter enormously. Strong standards and principles can be weakened, overlooked, or pushed aside if community members are not paying attention and speaking up.
We need dedicated advocates to watchdog the creation of these plans, educate and engage their communities, and hold our decision makers accountable.
This is the Moment to Be Involved
Several jurisdictions in our chapter have initiated their planning processes. Cities and regional agencies will be making decisions about where and how to protect communities, what land to preserve for future sea level rise adaptation, when to use nature-based approaches, how to address groundwater rise and contamination, and how residents will be involved in those decisions.
For most elected officials, planners, and community members, comprehensive sea level rise planning is new territory. Yet the choices made in the next few years will have lasting consequences. These choices can preserve and expand our options as conditions change, giving Bay ecosystems more room and time to survive and creating flexibility for phased community protection. Or, they can lock communities into rigid, armored approaches that are costly to maintain and difficult, expensive, or even impossible to change. Become involved now and you can help shape how this new planning process unfolds. Bay Alive volunteers can monitor local planning activity, engage neighbors and elevate community concerns, ask informed questions, and advocate for solutions that keep our shorelines resilient and our future options open.
Let’s ensure our local decision-makers understand what’s at stake and turn strong regional standards into resilient local outcomes. We need dedicated volunteers to help watchdog the creation of these plans, educate and engage their communities, and hold our decision makers accountable. Join us and help keep the Bay alive for generations to come!