The war over a private island in the San Francisco Bay

Not Red Rock Island?<p>That&#x27;s privately owned, and currently for sale. Great location, south of the Richmond Bridge. It&#x27;s a 5 acre big steep-sided rock sticking out of deep water. Nobody has ever been willing to spend enough money to do anything with it. Even conservation groups don&#x27;t want it.<p>The price has gone from $49,000 in 1954 to an asking price of $25 million now. No takers.<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Red_Rock_Island" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Red_Rock_Island</a>

&gt; The water board says that the island had reverted from a hunting destination to a tidal marsh over 10 years before he bought it. For Sweeney, it was a duck club in disrepair with an abandoned levee that needed patching up. He also claimed that when he bought the property in 2011, no one told him it was protected.<p>This seems to be the crux of the issue. If what Sweeney is saying is true here it&#x27;s hard not to be sympathetic to him being caught in a sort of Kafkaesque trap. It seems common sense that you&#x27;d be able to repair levees on the island you bought.<p>The artificial wetlands being built in the Netherlands come to mind too.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Marker_Wadden" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Marker_Wadden</a>

FWIW, a followup article indicates the island was auctioned off for $3.8M to the John Muir Land Trust and the former owner who attended the auction was then arrested on outstanding warrants.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.sfgate.com&#x2F;local&#x2F;article&#x2F;san-francisco-island-owner-arrested-auction-20049689.php" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.sfgate.com&#x2F;local&#x2F;article&#x2F;san-francisco-island-ow...</a>

This article is unreadable on mobile with ads. No, I don’t use an ad-blocker on mobile, I just give up after a moment of playing whack-a-mole.<p>I guess that tracks, given the url.

Lame article, that&#x27;s not a war. I thought this would be about the Egg War of the Farallon Islands.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Egg_War" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Egg_War</a>

When the government wants your property there is very little you can do about it. I see nothing egregious but I can imagine there are some environmental karens who are very upset.