It was a “listening session,” with county transportation reps hoping to gain stakeholder feedback for their plans to protect the rail line that runs along the coast through San Clemente and Dana Point, and the message they heard was loud and clear:
Sand, not bulkier rock boulders and walls, should be the solution to protect the troubled tracks.
So argued residents and San Clemente city leaders, who pleaded with Orange County Transportation Authority presenters during a March 20 meeting to discuss proposals to keep the rail line moving. The meeting, in San Clemente, came in the wake of five closures of the rail line in recent years, and million of dollars spent to protect it — the result of the ocean eating up the beach and battering the tracks, as well as rain soaked hills crashing down.
A screenshot of an Orange County Transportation Authority presentation highlights the changing beach landscape in south San Clemente through the decades. (Source: OCTA)
Communities up and down the California coast are facing similar issues.
As beaches disappear, the ocean routinely batters harder parts of the coast, such as rocks and cliffs.
That, in turn, is forcing coastal communities to make choices about how best to protect vulnerable (and valuable) property and infrastructure: Are rocks and man-made seawalls the solution? Or should nature-based adaptations, including sand, be used as a buffer to hold back the sea?
Discussions this week in San Clemente, both at a March 19 council meeting and during the OCTA town hall held the next morning, spotlight challenges facing the quaint coastal city as it tries to figure out how to bolster, or at least keep what little remains, of its sandy beaches.
The OCTA’s recent efforts to armor the area — and a recent $200-million proposal to bring even more rock boulders and a half-mile-long wall to the coast in an attempt to protect the rail — have raised concerns among residents, activist groups and experts who believe rocks exasperate the cycle that leads to coastal erosion. Experts believe that when waves reach the solid rocks or seawalls, it then scours even more sand away and doesn’t allow sand to naturally make its way back to the shoreline.
Though solutions of rip rap (another word for rock boulders) and catchment walls are being sought as ways to address short-term threats to the railroad, those requests do not preclude using sand in the future, according to Dan Phu, project manager for OCTA.
But, Phu argued, adding sand instead of rocks can take more time. Phu said using sand requires getting permits from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and other state agencies, a process that has taken years in some previous replenishment projects.
Phu noted that OCTA staff have been meeting with coastal engineering experts and the state Coastal Commission to learn more about the science of how armoring vulnerable property can affect sand erosion.
“But, there’s a here and now,” Phu said, referring to the short time frame related to protecting the coastal train tracks.
“We need to keep the railroad operational.”
Residents worry that their concerns about bringing in even more rock boulders – more than a mile’s worth at both the south and north ends of the city’s coastline – are not being heard, and that plans to use rocks are already in motion.
In the works is a two-year “short-to-medium term” study. And, within that process, there are seven areas that need to be watched now, four of which require immediate action, Phu said on Wednesday, repeating a presentation given to OCTA board members earlier this month.
Suzie Whitelaw, who founded the advocacy group Save Our Beaches San Clemente after the OCTA began rock dumping at Cyprus Shores following a 2021 landslide, said the new plans to add even more rocks there, and at neighboring Calafia State Beach, will wipe out the sand that makes the area usable.
“You are going to occupy the entire beach with sea walls,” she said. “This is not a short-term solution to your problem, this is a long-term destruction to our environment. This is death to our beaches… Boulders kill beaches.”
For 120 years, a wide sandy beach protected the tracks, she noted. But when enough erosion occurred that the ocean regularly battered the rocks, it set off a doom loop of sorts for the beach, interrupting the natural flow of sand that would otherwise return to the area if rocks weren’t in the way.
Mandy Sackett, senior policy coordinator for Surfrider Foundation, said OCTA’s plan should not be exempt from needing proper permitting, a loophole used when public work is done under an emergency exemption.
Applying for the permits allows for the necessary alternative analysis, public input, review of the Coastal Act and other impacts, she argued, something OCTA has been able to bypass in the past three years because it has been acting under emergency permitting.
Waves hit the bottom of stairs leading to the beach during high tide north of the pier in San Clemente, CA, on Dec. 7, 2022. Many parts of the coast have no sand left during higher tides as severe erosion has drastically changed the coastline in recent years and opponents of OCTA’s plans to add more rocks say the boulders are making matters worse. (Photo by Jeff Gritchen, Orange County Register/SCNG)
“There’s no way a $200-million project can justifiably go without a CEQA (California Environmental Quality Act) review and without the Coastal Act review,” she said. “It’s offensive.”
Surfrider is “dismayed” that recent assessments do not take nature-based solutions into consideration. Sackett said studies should also be done on the impact that rip rap used on the south end of town has already had on nearby surf break Lower Trestles, one of the most popular surf spots in the world.
Toni Nelson, founder of the advocacy group Capo Cares, said the landslides and erosion threatening the rail line were predicted decades ago, and that studies in 1993 and 2003 recommended using sand to protect the line. The current troubles, she added, should not be a surprise.
Several of the areas of concern along the coastal railway also were highlighted in a 2021 study called “OCTA Rail Defense Against Climate Change Plan.” In that report, the OCTA acknowledged that, per the state Coastal Commission, new or enhancements to rock revetments “should be designed to eliminate or mitigate adverse impacts on local shoreline sand supply and beach access.”
“Any adaptation strategies that include armoring should include an analysis of impacts to resources and also reference the requirement to mitigate for beach loss, natural sand supply deposits from coastal bluffs, and restrictions in public access and recreation that occurs with the placement of rip-rap and other structures,” it reads. “Refined cost estimates will need to factor in the cost of mitigation for any lost public trust resources, as required by Coastal Act … Any economic impact on the region’s tourism and subsequent impact on the regional economy should be analyzed as well.”
Typically, when armoring harms the beach, the Coastal Commission requires a mitigation be paid or implemented to offset those effects, but so far it has not asked OCTA to do so.
At a Coastal Commission meeting earlier this month, commissioner Chair Caryl Hart said she was “extremely concerned” about OCTA’s bouldering plans and the disappearance of Orange County beaches.
“If this continues, everything Orange County represents, everything that people value … will be disappearing,” she said.
Kate Huckelbridge, executive director of the Coastal Commission, said a broader conversation needs to be had about OCTA’s plans and that commission staff were meeting with their team.
“We will lose the beaches in front of this track if we keep putting the boulders up,” she said.
Sand, in the current OCTA proposal, is only mentioned once, Nelson noted. Rip rap rock, on the other hand, is mentioned 54 times.
“You have one solution, and it’s rock,” she said. “We will have no beaches because of what you are doing today. I’m really speaking for the future generations, the tourism (industry), and the people of San Clemente and Dana Point, for all of the millions of people who come to our beach.”
San Clemente’s City Manager Andy Hall noted that rock revetment is often seen as an investment that would last longer, but that rocks mean more erosion, and a constant need to bring more rocks will continue.
“The cost for sand is comparable, if not less, and OCTA would have a willing partner with the city and community, rather than advisories,” Hall said.
“We understand the need for a revetment and some armoring is necessary,” Hall added. “But when armoring is required, there should be some thought of how we protect that with sand to keep the water away from it… The only solution to shoreline conservation and protection is sand.”
At a city council meeting this week, Hall and others spoke about the many ways the city is trying to rebuild its beaches, including the need to speak out against OCTA’s rock proposals if it doesn’t include sand.
A key issue is cost. A city staff report notes that maintaining a sandy beach could cost San Clemente $4 million a year, and up to $200 million in the next 50 years, so the city should look at various tax methods and create a sand fund to be used to maintain the beaches.
Another concern, voiced by several council members, is that any sand mitigation fees paid by OCTA to the Coastal Commission could go to a general fund, rather than specifically to help San Clemente’s beaches.
“We need actual sand placed on the beach,” said the city’s Coastal Administrator Leslea Meyerhoff, who gave a presentation for a draft Coastal Strategic Plan.
“If the impacts happen in San Clemente, the mitigation needs to occur in San Clemente as well. We can’t let that sand or money go elsewhere. We have to fight for that.”