Commentary: In 50-year fight to protect California's coast, they're the real McCoys, still at it in their 80s

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IMPERIAL BEACH, Calif. — Mike and Patricia McCoy answered the door of their cozy cottage in Imperial Beach, a short stroll from crashing waves and several blocks from the Tijuana River Estuary, where California meets Mexico and the hiking trails are named for them.They offered me a seat in a living room filled with awards for their service and with books, some of them about the wonders of the natural world and the threat to its survival.The McCoys are the kind of people who look you in the eye and give you their full attention, and Patricia’s British accent carries an upbeat, birdsong tone.In the long history of conservation in California, few have worked as long or as hard as the McCoys.Few have achieved as much.And they’re still at it.

Mike at 84, Patricia at 89.The McCoys settled in Imperial Beach in the early 1970s — Mike was a veterinarian, Patricia a teacher — when the coastal protection movement was spreading across the state amid fears of overdevelopment and privatization.In 1972, voters approved Proposition 20, which essentially laid down a hallmark declaration:The California coast is a public treasure, not a private playground.Four years later, the Coastal Act became state law, regulating development in collaboration with local government agencies, guaranteeing public access and protecting marine and coastal habitats.Here’s the reason all development proposals for the coast are exhaustively reviewed, with the perils of sea level rise in mind, and in the interest of protecting marine and shore habitatsDuring that time, the McCoys were locked in a fight worth revisiting now, on the 50th anniversary of the Coastal Act.

There had been talk for years about turning the underappreciated Tijuana River Estuary, part of which was used as a dumping ground, into something useful.Mike McCoy knew the roughly 2,500-acre space was already something useful, and vitally im...