By Adam Kaye
North County Times
September 21, 2005
ENCINITAS
---- Some surfers Tuesday demanded that the U.S. Army Corps of
Engineers study how a proposed bluff-protection program could
alter beaches and spoil the formation of waves.
In a report released earlier this month, the federal agency
recommended sand replenishment along nearly three miles of
shoreline in Encinitas and Solana Beach.
The
report also suggested filling wave-created notches at the
bases of ocean bluffs with concrete.
At Tuesday's workshop at City Hall, opponents said that would
amount to protecting private, bluff-top property with public
dollars.
The corps is scheduled to host a second workshop tonight in
Solana Beach.
Ronald Blasberg, a Corps of Engineers planner, told about 30
listeners in Encinitas that the government has studied the
Encinitas shoreline for 12 years.
The 50-year, $30.1 million program is in the midst of
environmental review and is scheduled to begin in 2008, he
said.
A first phase would cost $14.5 million, with 64 percent of
costs borne by the federal government and 36 percent to be
shared between Encinitas and Solana Beach. That translates to
$5.2 million in local costs.
Without the project, he said, annual costs of seawalls and
property damages would amount to an average of $1.78 million.
In Encinitas, the Corps of Engineers project would build a
70-foot-wide beach from the 700 block of Neptune Avenue south
to H Street. The 628,000 cubic meters of sand would be dredged
from offshore deposits.
In Solana Beach the project would build a 40-foot-wide beach
with 310,000 cubic meters of sand from Solana Vista Drive
south to the city's border with Del Mar.
Both stretches would receive additional sand every five years.
Eroded beaches leave the bases of bluffs vulnerable to erosion
by waves, which in turn can cause higher sections of bluff to
fail, imperiling private property and public beach access
points, Blasberg said.
At the workshop, members of a bluff-top homeowners group, the
Seacoast Preservation Association, endorsed the plan and said
it would make for safer beaches that more people could enjoy.
Walking on the beach and watching a family member surf should
not be a life-altering experience, said one of the group's
members, referring to a bluff collapse in Encinitas that
killed a woman.
Susan Steele, another Sea Coast member, added, "I do
believe you've listened very closely to the concerns."
Opponents scoffed at that claim.
Marco Gonzalez, an attorney who advises the San Diego chapter
of the Surfrider Foundation, blasted the Corps of Engineers'
proposal to bluff notches with "erodible concrete."
There is no such thing as erodible concrete, and what good is
material if its purpose is to stop erosion, he said.
He said the Corps of Engineers has not disclosed how it would
regulate the granule sizes of imported sand.
Nowhere in its study has the Corps of Engineers analyzed how
the man-made beaches ---- and the refraction of waves off of a
steep, sand slope ---- could affect surfing spots.
During Gonzalez' testimony, Lt. Col. Mark R. Blackburn of the
Corps of Engineers told him he had used his entire two minutes
to speak, but other members of the audience said quickly they
would donate their time to him.
"If we lose D Street," Gonzalez said of the popular
surfing spot, "you're going to have a lot of problems in
the future with your sand placement."
Other opponents said that to build on a bluff is to ignore
inevitable erosion.
Throughout the workshop, however, the most consistent concern
came from perceived threats to the surf.
"I don't think the importance of surfing in the community
is in the analysis," said Terry Hendricks of Encinitas.
Tonight's Corps of Engineers workshop in Solana Beach begins
at 6 p.m. at City Hall, 635 S. Highway 101.
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