Save The Bay Halts Airport Project to Fill the Bay

In 1998, SFO reversed a decade of denials and announced it would build runways farther into San Francisco Bay by launching a $75 million public relations campaign to sell the public on the largest proposed Bay fill project since the 1960s. SFO's media blitzes and paid opposition research instead strengthened a deep regional consensus against paving over more of our Bay, which has already been shrunk by one-third.

In response to growing criticism of the project led by Save The Bay and our supporters, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors ordered a management audit of the airport by the City Budget Analyst. The audit confirmed that SFO tried to sell the runways instead of studying alternatives, ignored public input, skirted contracting regulations and let consultants and vendors gorge themselves at the trough.

After four years of intense public scrutiny and Save The Bay advocacy, and with the airport more than $4 billion in debt, SFO shelved its plans and the Board of Supervisors prohibited any further spending on runway expansion into the Bay. Finally in 2008, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors passed a resolution that no additional fill should be placed in San Francisco Bay for new or reconfigured runways at San Francisco International Airport, ending a nearly decade long battle.