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Jim McGrath, A Man of Many Suits

Jim McGrath has seen the Bay from all sides. He first looked at it through the eyes of a regulator, reviewing environmental impact statements and working on water quality issues for the EPA in the early 1970s. Next, the Coastal Commission hired him as a wetlands restoration specialist and "on call water quality expert." Then in 1990 he switched sides and joined the ranks of the regulated when the Port of Oakland signed him up to manage environmental and hazardous materials reviews of all the Port's airport, seaport and commercial real estate projects.

But McGrath thinks the best view is from the deck of a fiberglass board as it skims across the waves. "My favorite suit is still a neoprene suit," the avid windsurfer confesses. When he isn't "conducting drive by surveys of the Bay" from his board, the tall and craggy McGrath is applying his considerable technical and political skills for the Port. He played a key role in getting approvals for the Port's 42-foot dredging project. He's also worked on state and federal regulatory reform, and developed innovative wetlands restoration projects.

McGrath was glad to leave the Coastal Commission -under the Deukmejian administration, its budget had been gutted and one of its members sent to jail for extortion. ("I still have a file marked 'Commission Sleaze,' he says.) But making the transition to the Port wasn't easy. It took about six months before he was completely accepted, he recalls. "I had to establish the credibility that I had the Port's interest and not just tree hugger interests at stake."

One of his first challenges was to convince the Port that using harbor dredgings to restore the Sonoma Baylands was feasible. In the early 90s, the "sustainable reuse" concept was "thinking way outside the box," he says. By stressing both the environmental and economic benefits, he helped to get the project moving. "By the end of the day, using the Sonoma Baylands was probably cheaper than ocean dumping," he says.

Longtime colleagues credit McGrath with being a master coalition builder, albeit an outspoken one. "What Jim tries to do is see how the port can carry out its duties and still protect San Francisco Bay," says the Bay Commission's Will Travis, who has known McGrath since the 70s. "He feels strongly and passionately about things and does not suffer people who disagree lightly. You have to have your facts, because he has his facts." The Port benefitted by hiring McGrath in 1990, adds the Bay Planning Coalition's Ellen Johnck. "At the timethere didn't seem to be a lot of public confidence in the environmental planning at the Port. Jim changed all that." Even though it took many frustrating years to get the dredging project underway, McGrath never stopped pushing. That's typical, says Johnck. "He's tenacious as a junkyard bulldog and wild eyed as the windsurfer he is."

Currently, the Port is tussling with the Bay Commission and other agencies over the 50-foot dredging project, but McGrath is confident. Again, he stresses the economic advantages, noting the Port could save millions by doing wetland restoration, rather than using the open ocean as a disposal site. Much of the dredged material is targeted for a wetlands project at the former Hamilton Air Force Base but McGrath is especially enthusiastic about a proposal to rebuild intertidal marsh in the the port's Middle Harbor. "I'd like to see habitat restoration going on in Oakland as well as in Marin and Sonoma Counties," he says.

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