California Governor Gavin Newsom’s emergency plan to shield coastal homes from a powerful El Niño is drawing criticism from environmentalists who fear the measures could come at the expense of the state’s iconic beaches.
As towering El Niño-driven waves threaten to batter California’s shoreline, residents and officials are turning to boulders, seawalls and other barriers in an effort to keep ocean water away from homes and infrastructure.
A statement from the governor’s office last week said California would be able 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 rocks, concrete, timber and engineered seawalls designed to hold back the force of the waves.
Coastal experts, however, caution that these defenses may provide only temporary relief. Over time, they could accelerate the loss of sandy beaches and create environmental consequences that remain long after the latest storms have passed.
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.”
That conflict—protecting property from immediate coastal flooding while potentially damaging the shoreline for decades—is becoming an increasingly urgent issue in California.
In Dana Point, just south of the upscale surf community of Laguna Beach, homeowners have moved quickly to install defenses, including a boulder barrier, according to the city.
California Governor Gavin Newsom authorized faster action to install temporary defenses against rising seas, but experts fear the long-term consequences for the coastline.
Homes along the California coast face powerful waves linked to the latest El Niño conditions.
Experts say taxpayer-funded protections for beach houses could leave the public with less accessible beach and greater environmental costs.
KTLA-TV recently aired footage showing workers pouring concrete along the shoreline as they fortified homes against the surf.
Residential properties are not the only concern. A coastal railroad route that carries $1 billion in freight annually has also faced a long-running threat from erosion and collapsing shoreline.
A riprap installation completed last year was intended to slow soil loss and absorb the impact of powerful waves. Yet sediment near the rail line continued to wash away, and part of the tracks fell into the ocean this month.
While the emergency barriers may preserve buildings and infrastructure for now, they can also hasten the disappearance of California’s beaches by trapping sandy areas between a rising sea and hardened walls.
Chad Nelsen, chief executive of the coastal and ocean conservation group Surfrider Foundation, said seawalls and similar structures create rigid boundaries that leave beaches with less room to shift and replenish.
“Sea walls and revetments and rock riprap can temporarily protect homes and public infrastructure like the train tracks, but they ultimately destroy the beach,” Nelson 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 warned in 2017 that California could lose as much as two-thirds of its beaches by the end of the century if sea levels rise between three and six feet.
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Scientists estimate that a three- to six-foot rise in sea level could leave California without up to two-thirds of its beaches by the end of the century.
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.
Our News Outlet contacted Gavin Newsom’s office for comment.
