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Kay Kerr, Co-Founder Of Save The Bay, Dies At 99

EL CERRITO (AP) -- Catherine "Kay" Kerr, co-founder of the first environmental organization dedicated solely to protecting San Francisco Bay, has died.

Kerr was the widow of former University of California president Clark Kerr. She and two other wives of UC Berkeley faculty founded Save the Bay in 1961 to fight a plan by the city of Berkeley to fill in part of the bay.

The organization became a model of early environmental grassroots activism and helped start the country's first coastal protection agency, the Bay Conservation and Development Commission.

Save the Bay also secured a moratorium on landfill in the bay and pushed for the establishment one of the country's largest urban wildlife refuges.

The University of California says Kerr died on Dec. 18 at her home in El Cerrito. She was 99.

(© 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)

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