1972 Petition to President Nixon to save the Stanislaus River

This petition was part of a major 1971-72 effort – it was a joint project of the Stanislaus outfitters – working as the Pacific River Outfitters Association, or PROA – and the Sierra Club. David Kay of ARTA and Jerry Meral of the Environmental Defense Fund coordinated this campaign which involved hundreds of people gathering 100,000 signatures!  Raft guides were key, asking people to sign on river trips and going into cities to solicit support, but many others helped, too. The Nixon administration, in September 1972, refused to accept the petition. Eventually, the signatures were delivered to California Resources Secretary Ike Livermore (under Gov. Reagan), to show support for saving the river.