Death of Longtime Local Environmentalist Is Mourned by Many

• Founder of Save Our Coast Wanted to Be a Voice for Marine Mammals and Their Ocean Home

BY BILL KOENEKER

Mary Frampton, 76, who was in the forefront of the local environmental movement especially during the 1980s and early 1990s, has died.

The longtime Malibuite, who said she could live anywhere in the world but loved Malibu and would not leave, had recently revealed she believed she had Lyme disease. The cause of death, according to a Los Angeles County Sheriff’s report, was “apparently of natural causes based on a doctor who signed the death certificate.”

“We are going to miss her,” said Malibu Mayor Ken Kearsley, who was a neighbor and longtime colleague. The mayor served on the board of directors of Save Our Coast which was founded by Frampton.

Former Mayor and City Councilmember Joan House, now a member of the city’s planning commission, who worked closely with Frampton on several key environmental issues, said, “Mary Frampton was a tireless worker on behalf of the dolphins, water quality and the ocean. Mary’s unique individuality and focus will be greatly missed by me and is a loss for the city.”

Councilmember Sharon Barovsky said she was also saddened by Frampton’s sudden departure.

Frampton early on became interested in environmental issues, particularly about clean ocean water, and often stated everyone should insist the oceans remain clean and healthy and free from pollutants and discharges from land based human endeavors. She said surfers, who had started their own environmental movement calling themselves the canaries of the coast, in part, influenced her insights.

Frampton became very involved in how bacteria and viruses remain active in the oceans long after they are discharged and was influenced by some of the most prominent researchers and scientists at the time who were warning about the dangers of infection to swimmers, ocean users and even marine mammals. The latter, whom she called the innocent creatures of the underwater world, helped spur on another group of Frampton’s, called Dolphin Watch.

By all accounts, Frampton’s most intense passion after the city was incorporated was several attempts to create a marine sanctuary along the Malibu coastline. Frampton and SOC lead the charge for city leaders to do what was necessary to develop some kind of protection for Malibu’s fragile shoreline.

The resultant product, despite initial opposition from commercial fishing interests, made it through Sacramento’s legislative process only to be vetoed by the governor. “She was way ahead of the curve when she championed the cause of no-take zones in the Pacific, which would have enhanced the number and the size of fish and the health of the ocean,” said House.

House recalled how Frampton had paid for one of the studies required to show the need for a sanctuary. “With studies and documents in hand she went to Sacramento and managed to achieve the support of commercial fishermen for the no-take zones and encouraged the legislators to implement these zones,” added House. “Unfortunately this did not occur.”

Barovsky talked about how Frampton never gave up her desire to see firsthand a sanctuary created for Malibu. Barovsky said she told Frampton just weeks ago that the current administration’s plans for marine protection included an area in or around Malibu.

“Mary was so thrilled,” Barovsky remembered. “She said, ‘Oh my God, I could die happy.’”

Barovsky praised Frampton’s behind the scenes help with the city. “Most people have no idea what she did for the city. Save Our Coast was a co-signer for the Los Flores restoration project. She supported acquisition of the Chili Cook-Off site and made calls for us and opened up doors,” added Barovsky.

The mayor recalled how she remained a tireless cheerleader for the municipality. “She was always on the phone. She was always talking to people. She was very positive. She cared about the animals. She cared about the ocean. She cared about the beauty of Malibu,” he noted.

A photojournalist by trade, Frampton worked for years at the Los Angeles Times and was married to a Times editor, who passed away several decades ago. It was her husband’s love of the sea and sailing that brought the two to Malibu purchasing a modest ranch home in Sycamore Park.

Frampton’s work is a who’s who of the political dignitaries and world-famous celebrities of the 50s, 60s and 70s that she captured on film. It is believed her work is archived at UCLA. Frampton came from a newspaper family. Her father owned the Spanish-language paper El Sol of San Bernardino.

When husband and wife commuted to work, the two continued to spend all of their free time in their paradise by the sea. The two landscaped the creek side bungalow that is just minutes walking distance to the ocean and over the years, the subtropical vegetation grew into what Frampton called her “rainforest,” always beckoning friends and others to visit.

Her attorney John Murdock confirmed that Frampton left wishes to keep her residence as the headquarters for Save our Coast. She often expressed interest that the home become an environmental center.

Frampton’s love of nature extended to trees, many of them along the riparian corridor she lived in towering over her. She contended the trees protected her, her critters and all who dwelled below them. Just this winter the fierce Santa Ana windstorms brought several of the huge sycamores that graced her property and her neighbor’s down onto her house but without any untoward effect to any structure. “The trees protected me,” she insisted.

At one time, Frampton became so concerned that a government agency such as the California Coastal Commission might force her to rid her property of exotic species of trees that she extracted promises from several individuals that they would chain themselves to the trees to save them from any untoward action.

Frampton’s foray in local public life began in the mid-1980s when she guided her group Save Our Coast into the political turbulence of the time in Malibu when Los Angeles County was attempting to sewer Malibu. She insisted that sewering of the coastal community would not be the way to keep the ocean safe from pathogens because of the technology used in the 1970s and 1980s that allowed for pipe outfalls to simply discharge the effluent further out to sea. Frampton’s and others’ insistence there be no pipe outfall is a legacy that remains today in terms of local or regional leaders suggesting that sort of solution for Malibu. The idea could never get past Frampton’s local lobbying efforts.

With the influence of a number of groups, including Save Our Coast, and hundreds of other Malibuites, the county’s efforts to put in a major sewer line and plant were thwarted and Frampton turned her efforts towards informing the public about the biological hazards that existed along the coastline.

Save Our Coast sponsored several major symposiums that featured well-known speakers who told about the probable fate of the oceans if mankind’s current practices on land were left unchecked.

Memorial services are pending.