Seawalls and Oil Spills

It is interesting to examine the parallels that exist between the environmental nightmare of the Deepwater Horizon and the Seawalls Built in Solana Beach. The best thing about this oil spill, is it got people motivated to stop drilling and hopefully gets them thinking of how to not use oil.

My guess is most people will do nothing about the seawall issue until there are no beaches to go to. You will have concrete and water. Nowhere to walk, not even if you are shore bird.

Just like an oil spill seawalls are an accident waiting to happen. If you want to stop the seawall accident, get involved before the bulldozers are rolling on the beach.

I hope this helps get someone into the fight.

Unplanned Beach Retreat - The Coastal Act and seawalls

The CCC annd authorized Local Coastal Plans should not permit seawall construction on an eroding coastline when it would threaten recreational access to the beach protected by Coastal Act Sections on Public Access 30210-30214 and Recreation, Sections 30220-30222 .

• Seawalls should not be approved on eroding coastlines unless it is clear that there is a viable mitigation plan.
• Seawalls fix the the back boundary of the beach. So long as the shoreline is experiencing a net retreat, a net sea level rise, or natural seacliff retreat, the width of the beach will decrease with the construction of a protective structure.
• Without mitigation that can be performed we have a de facto Unplanned Beach Retreat Policy - our beaches will shrink between wall and water.
• The Coastal Act provides several guiding and potentially conflicting principles on how to deal with this complex issue making regulation difficult. We want to address this conflict.
• 30007.5 states that when "...conflicts be resolved in a manner which on balance is the most protective of significant coastal resources."
• 30235 requires approval of seawalls "..to protect existing structures or public beaches in danger from erosion and when designed to eliminate or mitigate adverse impacts on local shoreline sand supply.
• Section 30604(c) requires that every coastal development permit (including for seawalls) issued for any development between the nearest public road and the sea include a specific finding that the development is in conformity with the public access and public recreation policies of [Coastal Act] Chapter 3.
• Coastal Act Sections 30210 through 30213, as well as Sections 30220 and 30221 specifically protect public access and recreation.
• Section 30210: references Section 4 of Article X of the California Constitution
• Section 30211: requires that "Development shall not interfere with the public's right of access to the sea..."
• Section 30212(a): Public access from the nearest public roadway to the shoreline and along the coast shall be provided in new development projects�
• Section 30213: Lower cost visitor and recreational facilities shall be protected, encouraged, and, where feasible, provided. Developments providing public recreational opportunities are preferred.
• Section 30220: Coastal areas suited for water-oriented recreational activities that cannot readily be provided at inland water areas shall be protected for such uses.
• Section 30221: Oceanfront land suitable for recreational use shall be protected for recreational use and development unless present and foreseeable future demand for public or commercial recreational activities that could be accommodated on the property is already adequately provided for in the area.
• The cumulative effects of seawalls on shoreline access along with the present approval policy and rate of seawall construction and approval makes the governing policies of maintaining access along the coast impossible to enforce
• We must use the Coastal Act policies to balance in favor of the environment per Section 30007.5, and per Section 4 of Article X of the California Constitution that "...give the most liberal construction to this provision, so that access to the navigable waters of this State shall be always attainable for the people thereof."

Was there erosion first or development first?

Institutional memory is a wonderful tool. If we forget our history we are doomed to repeat its mistakes and will not learn from them. The picture above shows the condominiums at the southern end of Solana Beach around the time of its construction in 1974. Note the bluff is already eroding and the bluffs were eroding during construction. You can learn more about this by reading:

Kuhn, Gerald G., and Francis P. Shepard, "Sea Cliffs, Beaches, and Coastal Valleys of San Diego County: Some Amazing Histories and Some Horrifying Implications". Berkeley: University of California Press, c1984. The picture above and many others are from that text. It is available online at http://ark.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/ft0h4nb01z/. The picture is on page 73.

One of the key elements of our campaign is to show the public and the policymakers that the baseline condition of our coast is a naturally eroding condition impacted by complex factors including the geology of the coast, sea level rise, wave energy and the presence of sand. In the above example, the bluff material is extremely susceptible to erosion since it is composed of sediment that was carried to the coast via an ancient river. Between 1971 and 1978 the area experienced 10 feet of erosion according to Kuhn and Shepard. No El Nino or lack of sand caused this erosion. It was simply the lack of due diligence by the developer in building in this location.

Unfortunately, a seawall now exists at the subject site. It was built immediately after the development was completed at this location. The seawall collapsed soon after it was built (above) and was rebuilt at the same site(below). It still exists today.

How much wider would the beach have been had this wall never been built given that the bluff eroded 10 feet in 7 years? In this case, we will never know, but we do know that lack of sand and El Nino storms did not cause this seawall to be needed thanks to the work of Kuhn and Shepard.