Oceanside Harbor dredging falls short

I'm adding Jim's comment at the beginning because he's absolutely correct:

"The misconception that the shoreline must be maintined at the same location as in 1960 let alone as last year is the fundamental problem. Not a lack of sand. The rate of sand removal is greater than the rate of deposition even in a natural condition. With the harbor jetties and sea level rise, the rate of removal is even greater. The shoreline must move landward to compensate."

Oceanside Harbor dredging falls short in replenishing city beaches
North County Times-4/20/10

Oceanside's beaches are in such sorry shape this year that sand dredged from the city's harbor didn't go nearly as far is it usually does in making up for the ravages of winter storms.

In a typical year, sand dredged from the harbor every April by the Army Corps of Engineers is pumped onto city beaches as far south as Tyson Street Park, which is about three blocks south of Oceanside Municipal Pier, said Frank Quan, city harbor and beaches coordinator.

This week, as workers packed up their equipment, it became clear that the dredged sand only stretched as far as the pier.

"It's the first year I can ever recall that we didn't have dredged sand south of the pier," said John Daley, a lifelong Oceanside resident and founding member of the Oceanside Historical Society.

"It's just never happened, and I'm old enough to remember the beaches back to the '60s," said Daley, who has collected photographs going back to the 1880s showing the ebb and flow of beach sand.

...more at the NC Times

Coast News Group - Fee structure plan for sea walls available

This is a great article on the fee study in Solana Beach for seawalls and how it will lead to seawall removal.

Coast News Group - Fee structure plan for sea walls available

SOLANA BEACH — A plan to help Solana Beach meet its goal of eliminating sea walls by 2081 is now available on the city website. Residents are encouraged to view and comment on the proposal, which requires bluff-top property owners who build shoreline protection devices to pay a fee.Sea walls, which are allowed in Solana Beach only under specific circumstances, prevent natural bluff erosion that creates beaches. The purpose of the fee is to compensate the public for that recreational loss of the beach. It is part of the city’s long-term shoreline protection management plan to preserve and enhance a safe beach for the public while protecting the rights of bluff-top property owners.

Read more at link above/below...

Coast News Group - Fee structure plan for sea walls available

Survey Says: Children Do Not Count on the Beach

City's Consulants do not value a child's day at the beach.

The City of Solana Beach Draft Land Lease & Recreation Fee Report for 60 day comment period on April 14, 2010. The report is to be used to determine the lease for using public beaches and bluffs for the private purpose of building seawalls to protect private property.

The Staff Report from the Fee Study explains this rather well.

Simplistically, the fees are calculated by determining the beach attendance and how much one spends in travel time and use of the beach.

One major problem, the study did not use a child's day at the beach in figuring out the values. A child's day at the beach has no value.

It costs $325 to send each of my 2 kids to the beach for the awesome 20 day Solana Beach Junior Lifeguard Program, I wonder if a day at the beach is worth at least $325/20=16.25?

If I add the trip to Roberto's or Rubios to that it seems like we spend a lot more for kids going to the beach than 0?

Not to mention, they go to the beach a lot more than just for Junior Lifeguards.

The Consultants need some convincing. Send in your comments to them.

I will be bloggin more on this later.

LA Times: Southern California beach erosion is worst in a decade

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-vanishing-beaches2-2010apr02,0,2223726.story



...In January and February, powerful swells, high tides and strong winds swept away tons of sand from the coastline, stealing as much as 30 to 40 feet of beachfront at some locations.

In the month or two since the El Niño-driven storms, coastal communities -- Laguna Beach, Malibu and Manhattan Beach among them -- have worked to patch the damage by making repairs and trucking in fresh sand, but some worry whether nature will return the sand as it has in the past.

The sand loss is a familiar phenomenon.

Shifting sand is part of a natural cycle that happens each year. Each spring, potent storm surges pull sand from the beaches out to sea. Over the summer, gentler waves gradually push it back ashore.

Periodically, beach cities throughout Southern California try to make up for the so-called sand deficit by pumping the material in from offshore.

Global warming and sea rise are contributing to the deterioration of beaches in the long term, scientists say, but those forces are not to blame for this spring's dramatic changes.

It's the exceptional level of damage this year that has been cause for alarm.

Fleecing of America - Beach Fill

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"This is a form of societal madness; to build buildings right up to the edge of an eroding shoreline doesn't make sense."

"By placing sand out there it [nourishment] provides a false sense of security."

Seawall Removal Case History

Scott vs Del Mar is an important case in our seawall position. This case ruled that a seawall built on public property could be removed and declared as a nuisance.

Here is some of the key information in the ruling:

"As discussed above, the evidence established (1) the Public Sidewalk on Map 1450 was dedicated to public use in 1912, and (2) the private seawalls, rip rap and patios on the Scott and Lynch properties completely obstructed public access to the Public Sidewalk area. Accordingly, the improvements were nuisances per se, and Del Mar had the power to declare them such and remove them, after complying with due process requirements."

"Likewise, Scott's and Lynch's claims that Del Mar's removal of the protective structures caused their properties to decrease in value fails to establish a constitutionally compensable "taking or damaging." To the contrary, as discussed above, Del Mar's abatement of the encroachments on public land was a reasonable exercise of its police power, which does not give rise to an inverse condemnation action."

While the seawall was ultimately removed from public property it was later built on private property.

Imperial Beach - Property owners claim threat to property but forget to mention their seawalls and development caused loss of beach

The article below is typical. A property owner builds too close to an eroding shoreline and then blames waves and tides for threatening their home. In the meantime, because they built this house an eroding coastline the beach has completely disappeared in front of their wall and home. The beach needs to shift landward but it cannot. Now the beach is gone. That is the real tragedy here. Nobody except Surfrider will fight to save that beach.


IMPERIAL BEACH — All that remains of a small, sandy beachfront yard once filled with lounge chairs and a fire pit are precariously stacked, protective boulders that residents of a four-unit Imperial Beach condominium complex say have sunk up to 10 feet.
A particularly damaging mix of high tides and high surf and a growing number of winter storms have stripped the sand from much of Imperial Beach, resulting in an emergency situation for Bill and Marty Arbuckle and their neighbors on Ocean Lane. They have asked the city to permit them to temporarily protect their condos with special 6-by-6-foot sandbags.
“This is the first time since we’ve lived here that we’ve had this kind of a problem,” Bill Arbuckle said last week from his home of 12 years as wisps of water from crashing waves reached his second-story sliding-glass door.
Imperial Beach officials, who approved the condominium owners’ request for temporary shoreline protection, say the problem isn’t limited to those at the condominiums.
“Shoreline erosion is a constant in our city but we’ve had consistent high storm and high tide events since December,” said Community Development Director Greg Wade. “Encinitas, Carlsbad and other coastal cities are having similar issues. The surf is so consistently high, there is no time for sand to settle back on the beach, which provides protection.”

Read the entire article:

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2010/mar/09/high-surf-threatens-homes/