Melvin B. Lane, former co-owner and publisher of Sunset Magazine and Books and a leading conservationist who helped safeguard the state's natural heritage as the first chairman of the California Coastal Commission, has died. He was 85.
Lane died Saturday at his home in Atherton, Calif., of complications from Parkinson's disease, according to a spokeswoman for Stanford University, where Lane was a trustee for 10 years.
The native Iowan, who moved to California as a child, was appointed to the Coastal Commission in 1972 by then-Gov. Ronald Reagan. Over the next five years he guided the development of a visionary coastal protection plan and led the commission's deliberations on many controversial issues, including the proposal to build a nuclear power plant at San Onofre.
"The most important thing he did with the California Coastal Commission was he presided over the creation of the California Coastal Plan," longtime commission Executive Director Peter Douglas said Tuesday of the policy that has been in force since the Legislature approved it in 1976. "This became the constitution for the coast of California and was the model coastal protection-conservation plan in the world."
Lane's authority in coastal preservation was established during the 1960s, when he led the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission. As that body's founding chairman, he oversaw the creation of a blueprint for conserving the bay that was believed to be the first of its kind in the world.
As a result of the plan, San Francisco Bay, the largest estuary on the Pacific coast, has more water now than it did in 1965, according to a history published on the commission's website.
In 1998 Lane was named conservationist of the year by the California League of Conservation Voters, which declared, "If you look around California, you would be hard-pressed to find a place of beauty that Mel hasn't played a part in preserving."
His devotion to the state's natural environment stemmed in part from the family business founded by his father in 1928. Laurence W. Lane was an advertising executive from Iowa who plunked down $60,000 for Sunset, a tourist-oriented publication created by Southern Pacific Railroad, and recreated it as a magazine devoted to the home and outdoor life of the West.
