Filling the San Francisco Bay 1969
Ideal Cement Keep Out Sign, SF Bay, 1969 
Auto wrecking yard on bay fill, 1969 
Ideal Cement Keep Out Sign, SF Bay, 1969 
Hazardous water quality Warning sign, SF Bay, 1969 
Auto wrecking yard on bay fill, 1969 
Leslie Salt Private Property Sign, SF Bay, 1969 
Freighter with Vallejo hills and power tower, 1965 
Freighter with Vallejo hills and power tower, 1965 
Shoreline, Crockett, CA 1969 
Utah Construction and Mining Keep Out sign, SF Bay, 1969 
Crane and shoreline, SF Bay, 1969 
Crane and shoreline, SF Bay, 1969 
Crane and shoreline, SF Bay, 1969 
Salt Crane, SF Bay, 1969 
Auto wrecking yard on bay fill, 1969 
Auto wrecking yard on bay fill, 1969 
Auto wrecking yard on bay fill, 1969 
City garbage dumping into Bay fill, 1969 
City garbage dumping into Bay fill, 1969 
Dredging crane, SF Bay, 1969 
Dredging crane, SF Bay, 1969 
Trucks filling the bay, 1969 
Dumping old pipe on bay fill, 1969 
Dumping old pipe on bay fill, 1969 
Dumping old pipe on bay fill, SF Bay, 1969 
Boat aground at low tide, SF Bay, 1969 
Barge and bay dump, SF Bay, 1969 
Barge and bay dump, SF Bay, 1969 
Dump site, SF Bay, 1969 
Bay front dump site, 1969 
Barge on SF bay wetlands, 1969 
1969, San Mateo County, CA. San Francsico Bay water pollution sign. 
Auto wrecking yard on bay fill, 1969
When Filling San Francisco Bay was Legal
In 1970, the Save the Bay movement arose to stop the filling San Francisco bay at a time when filling the bay was legal. To contribute to this movement, Harvey Richards made the film Warning Warning which documented the environmental threats to the San Francisco Bay. The photos in this “When Filling the Bay Was Legal, 1969” gallery were taken as part of his efforts to expose the corporate and municipal interests behind the systematic filling of the bay.
When Harvey made Warning Warning, corporate, real estate and government sponsored filling and polluting of the San Francisco Bay was accelerating, threatening to reduce the bay to a river outlet to the sea. The Save the Bay movement was fighting for protective legislation to hold back and reverse this trend. Harvey’s photographic efforts were designed to help conservationists by documenting who was filling and polluting the bay and what impact it was having.
Harvey Richards’ first encounters with the San Francisco Bay occurred in the 1930’s when, as an able-bodied seaman, he steered merchant ships into the bay at a time before the Golden Gate Bridge was built. A native of Oregon, he went to sea in 1930 at age 18 leaving on his first voyage from Portland, Oregon. In the 1950’s he picked up a camera and began making films to support causes that the anti-communist mainstream press refused to cover. He remained a radical foe of corporations and capitalism all his life.
Harvey’s films on the environment include three other films on logging that exposed the destructive nature of clear cutting and the wasteful practices of corporate logging up and down the west coast. He also made two films on mining in Butte, Montana. Together with Warning Warning, his environmental films give expression to conservationist ideas that were uncommon, but on the rise in the 1970’s, and are still gaining momentum today.
For San Francisco Bay documentary video, click here.
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