The California State Water Resources Control Board and city leaders closed this area in 1967.

Over the next several decades, what was biodegradable in the dump sites simply degraded and all the metal and other items were eventually removed and sold as scrap or used in art.

All entities in California end at the mean high water mark (MHW), according to Article 10 of the state constitution.

Captain Forrington, founder, owner and curator of the local Sea Glass Museum, is a strong advocate for a full-time research facility studying the benefits to the marine environment of the minerals used to make and clarify the glass, with a supporting aquarium that highlights the rich diversity of life found in Fort Bragg's waters, with the ultimate goal of promoting the formation of glass reefs to initiate new food chains worldwide on all the badly depleted continental shelves.

Several endangered and protected native plants occur at Glass Beach including hybrid Menzies' wallflower.

[10] The density and size of the items like tin on the beach create a sufficient and sustainable aggregate (Bascom 1960).

Fort Bragg has inspired the idea using RCGC (known as recycled crushed glass cullet) as a beach aggregate (Kerwin 1997).