Broad Beach - Boulders as Far as the Eye Can See

Last year, the homeowners at Broad Beach in Malibu, CA installed 1.1 mile rock revetment seawall on the public beach. I stopped by this past weekend to see how it's doing, and the results are not pretty. I happened to be there during an extremely low tide, so I could actually get down on a narrow stretch of sand. But it was very clear from the lack of any "dry" sand that during most of the tidal cycle there is literally no beach walk on.

Visit the "Save Broad Beach" page on Facebook to learn more and show your support for freeing this beach.

Bluff Collapse and Erosion is "Normal"

A recent bluff collapse in Encinitas reminds gives us an opportunity to look at how we manage an eroding shoreline and what we can expect more of in the future.


It's great to hear City engineer Greg Shields say: "It's been happening as long as the bluffs have been there. It's an ongoing erosion problem that is a natural occurrence, and what you witnessed today was a normal event."

He's absolutely right, and is a good reminder that these things happen, they happen all the time, and will continue to happen. It's probably a good idea to not build a house right up next to the bluff. Give the ocean some room, because "erosion happens."

Public Money For Private Beaches? NJ Residents Opposed

A new poll finds that an overwhelming number of New Jersey residents think beaches that are replenished with public money should be publicly accessible.

A whopping 82% of people surveyed say the few inaccessible beach towns should become more accessible in exchange for beachfill money.

Story here http://www.northjersey.com/news/state/010311_Poll_Improved_beaches_should_be_open_to_public.html

But that is not the plan of NJ Governor Chris Christie. His DEP is about to change beach access rules to allow these inaccessible towns to get beachfill money. More from the August 2010 blog entry.

An Editorial Board agrees with the people of NJ here http://www.app.com/article/20110104/OPINION01/101050329/Don-t-relent-on-acces

Property rights don't outweigh public's right to enjoy beaches -Editorial

The Wilmington Star-News came out with a great editorial piece this weekend supporting the long-standing ban on hardened shoreline structures.

"...structures don’t solve the problem; more often than not they shift erosion to another part of the beach."

"But during the decades-long coastal building boom, developers and landowners fought to be able to build in places coastal experts warned were erosion-prone. If it was vacant, someone pushed to build there, or to build closer to the water."

"Ideally, the ban should remain intact, for our beaches’ sake.

But if it is to be breached, as now seems is possible, the public must loudly remind the Honorables that the beaches belong to all state residents, not just a fortunate few with a spectacular view."

Lawyers Screw their Clients out of Sand

State calls off big Galveston beach project

Last week the TX Supreme Court took some of the teeth out of the Open Beaches Act, ruling that properties that suffer erosion from storms can't be ceded to the public, as was previously the case. The TX General Land Office (GLO), who manages public shorelines, decided that this ruling means the state can't go forward with a large Beach Fill project because it would now benefit private property. Of course the project would have benefited the very people who brought the original case.

"It's kind of ironic that the Pacific Legal Foundation, who supposedly is on the side of property owners, has just screwed the property owners who were going to have a direct benefit from the renourished beaches," Patterson said. He said that without the project, the rapidly eroding beach will put some of those houses in the Gulf of Mexico much faster.

So much for unintended consequences.

San Diego Gets More Than Sand

Beachfill projects can go wrong anywhere and we should be able to learn from them regardless of their location. I don’t want this blog to only be about projects gone bad in NJ. So, from my friends on the West Coast…



Mission Bay in San Diego was to be dredged for navigation and the material was to be used as fill on a local beach. But the project met with an unexpected, unknown element. Namely, the stuff on the bottom of the Bay! Everything from old tires to event older beer cans were being sucked off the bottom of the bay and onto the beach.



See the full slide show here in case you forgot what the Bud Light logo looked like ten years ago, what the Coors logo looked like 20 years ago, and what the Pepsi logo looked like 30 years ago.

It gets worse, when confronted with the “objects” appearing in the sand, the Army Corps and the contractor guaranteed local elected officials that a person would monitor the slurry coming out of the pipe. According to this article, that didn’t work out so well.

But anyone who has seen these pipes gushing the sand and water slurry would know there is no grabbing beer cans or whatever out of them while in progress.


A small collection of items found in with the beachfill.

More media on this issue.
http://www.10news.com/news/25471772/detail.html
http://obrag.org/?p=26170
http://www.voiceofsandiego.org/survival/article_566931f2-dcb3-11df-b31b-001cc4c002e0.html
http://aquafornia.com/archives/34668

The Weather Channel on Beachfill

This is a big complex issue and two minute attempts to convey it to the public often fall short. However, I think the Weather Channel did a really good job here for such a short segment.