California Governor Gavin Newsom’s plan to shield coastal homes from a potential super El Niño is facing criticism from experts who warn it could destroy some of the state’s most treasured beaches.
As California’s shoreline braces for monster waves linked to El Niño, residents and officials are turning to boulders, seawalls and other barriers to defend homes from the ocean.
A statement issued by the governor’s office last week said the state would be permitted to “move faster to protect communities, stage critical resources, and strengthen readiness before severe weather intensifies.”
Since then, sections of the coast have been reinforced with artificial defenses made from rocks, concrete, wood and seawalls designed to hold back the water.
Experts, however, caution that these measures may offer only temporary relief. In the longer term, they could damage sandy beaches and create effects that remain along the coast well beyond the current storm season.
Jonathan Warrick of the US Geological Survey told the LA Times: “It’s kind of a double-edged sword, where it may have some short-term benefits, but long-term, there’s a lot of work showing that some of those protection measures can have negative effects – both at the site, and immediately adjacent to the site.”
The conflict between protecting communities from rising seas today and preventing damage to the coastline tomorrow is becoming an increasingly urgent concern.
In Dana Point, south of the upscale surf town of Laguna Beach, coastal homeowners have moved quickly to install defenses such as a boulder barrier, according to a statement from the city.
California governor Gavin Newsom allowed the state to move faster to build short-term protections from rising sea levels but experts warned of long-term harm
Coastline houses in the Golden State are being swallowed by monster waves from the recent El Nino
Experts also warn that measures to protect beach houses funded by taxpayers come at a disadvantage for public beaches
KTLA-TV recently aired footage showing workers pouring concrete along the shoreline to protect beach homes.
Homes are not the only structures at risk. A coastal railroad line that transports $1 billion in freight each year has also long faced the threat of falling into the ocean.
A riprap project installed last year was intended to slow soil erosion and absorb the force of crashing waves. But this month, the project was seen losing sediment near the train tracks, which fell into the ocean.
The emergency defenses may preserve buildings and infrastructure in the short term, but they are also helping drive the loss of California’s sandy shoreline, leaving beaches trapped between a rising ocean and rigid seawalls.
Chad Nelsen, chief executive of the coastal and ocean conservation organization Surfrider Foundation, warned that seawalls and other fixed barriers leave beaches with no room for sand to shift.
“Sea walls and revetments and rock riprap can temporarily protect homes and public infrastructure like the train tracks, but they ultimately destroy the beach,” Nelsen told the LA Times.
“We’re making a trade-off between protecting the property and infrastructure for the public’s beach.”
The US Geological Survey said in 2017 that California could lose as much as two-thirds of its beaches by the end of this century if sea levels rise by three to six feet.
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Instead of building seawalls, adding sand to beaches has been proposed as a more natural protection
‘While seawalls can provide temporary relief for homes, they can also increase erosion and destroy the public beaches that help protect those same structures,’ said Chad Nelsen, chief executive of the coastal and ocean conservation organization Surfrider Foundation
The coastal city of Pacifica, near San Francisco, already lost a beach that existed in the 1970s to a mostly armored coastline.
A partial solution for some areas is to import sand to strengthen eroding beaches, but that can be very expensive.
Nelsen told the LA Times: ‘One of the questions is, if we’re going to spend state and federal money to replenish the beaches, is that fair that the homeowners get free public protection in front of their homes at all of our costs?
‘At some point, it’ll be probably cheaper to try to buy out the homes than to put sand on the beach forever, because these beach nourishment projects, beach replenishment projects, they’re tens of millions of dollars.’
Issues of coastal erosion, bluff movement, landslides, hight tides, storms and ocean swells have collectively disrupted a trainline from San Diego to Orange County for up to a full year in the past five years, according to the Orange County Transportation Authority.
The agency told the LA Times it has been working on solutions to protect the rail line for the next three decades, while a separate state-led effort looks at solutions beyond that time.
Some concepts include sand placement and, depending on location, more heavily engineered interventions such as seawalls or rock.
A beach that existed near San Francisco in the 1970s has already disappeared to a mostly armored coastline
California’s governor declared a state of emergency as the US West Coast is dealing with a particularly damaging El Nino
‘More than $300 million in state, federal and local funding has been secured for those priority rail protection efforts. Sand placement is also a significant component of this effort,’ the authority said.
Orange County Supervisor Katrina Foley acknowledged that rocks aren’t the perfect solution, but they are often the only option for emergencies.
‘We know the rocks that they have to keep adding out there are exacerbating the sand erosion, but we have to do that to protect the rails,’ she told the LA Times.
Recent hits to beaches were a result of strong swells from hurricanes in the eastern Pacific Ocean, Warrick said, as well as abnormally high tides.
Another factors is the roughly one-foot increase in sea levels along the California coast over the last 125 years caused by human-made global warming.
The Daily Mail contacted Gavin Newsom’s office for comment.