A plan long in the works to replenish roughly 600,000 cubic yards of sand to Broad Beach probably won’t happen until after the busy summer season. That means visitors and residents of the tony north end Malibu beach will not be able to use the area that’s been battered in recent years with high sand erosion that’s washed away precious coastal frontage.
The Broad Beach Geologic Hazard Abatement District is still awaiting two permits that will allow tons of sand to be trucked into Malibu from Ventura. Ken Ehrlich, the attorney representing the GHAD, said he is waiting for two water quality certifications to move forward.
“We anticipate permits complete by June,” Ehrlich told The Malibu Times. “We’re very hopeful and look forward to getting both of these major permits before the summertime. We hope to mobilize and start nourishing the beach by this September. We’re moving as fast as we can to accomplish nourishment this year. The GHAD staff hopes to be able to fulfill that commitment.”
At the Monday, March 13 Malibu City Council meeting, several Broad Beach residents came to voice their frustrations over the stalled plan, which has already eaten $31 million in property-owner dollars. City Manager Reva Feldman announced that, according to her conversations with California Coastal Commission staff, the project still has a whole range of conditions to meet before it can proceed.
“Basically, when the Coastal Commission approved the CDP in 2015, there were quite a few conditions that needed to be met before they could do the project,” Feldman described. “[According to coastal staff], 10 conditions … have yet to be met, so until those conditions are met, they can’t move forward.”
But Malibu City Council Member and environmentalist Jefferson “Zuma Jay” Wagner has been advocating a new technology to bring back the sand at Broad Beach. It’s called an artificial reef. It consists of boulders, cobble and gravel wrapped in biodegradable jute, but instead of armoring the coast in front of homes, the artificial reef is placed off shore where its advocates say the sand will fill in the gap, thereby replenishing the beach.
Wagner said the current plan, armoring the coast with boulders in front of homes and trucking in sand, would be futile.
“These efforts are temporary. The sand will get washed to Zuma Beach,” he said.
Wagner claimed he’s been studying artificial reefs for more than a decade and brought it to the attention of GHAD during his first term on the city council, when he served from 2008-12. He cited Santa Monica as an example.
“If you look at old pictures of the Santa Monica Pier from the ’30s and ’40s, you can see how much sand has accumulated behind the harbor wall that was created which is now at the level of most mean high tides,” Wagner described. “There’s evidence that these things do work. Santa Monica has seen so much sand replenishment that they’ve created new parking lots on sand and the sand keeps moving out to the end of the pier to the point where they may have to start dredging.” The harbor wasn’t built as an artificial reef, but Wagner said the concept is the same.
“I encourage sand replenishment; the general public will enjoy it, but for a short amount of time. They will be back doing it again in five years,” Wagner declared, “because the way the coast works — it takes sand from one area and moves it to the other. All the effort that’s being put into this … won’t help in the long run.”
Ehrlich said he recalled that suggestion, but it was not deemed to be an effective solution for Broad beach.
“We pursued that angle. Unfortunately … regulatory authorities view [Broad Beach] as essentially a hybrid beach — hybrid in terms of public and private ownership,” Ehrlich described, saying the mean high tide line demarcates private and public beach. “The Coastal Commission did not want to put artificial reefs in front of private property because they viewed it as an improvement on public property that significantly benefits private property. So, the Coastal Commission had a public policy issue with benefitting private property from artificial reefs out in the ocean.”
Ehrlich said artificial reefs are really meant for public beaches, according to the research he did.
“In light of the feedback we’ve gotten from public agencies, and assuming the viability of artificial reefs to do what they’re supposed to do, it’s likely that they would be far more viable on publically benefitted and public land beaches,” he said. “As an example, Will Rogers in Santa Monica, where there’s no private property backing a public beach, where it’s all public beach — that’s probably where a better application of where this technology can be used than a place like Broad Beach.”
Wagner cited his “13 – 13” rule.
“We have 13,000 residents and 13 million visitors a year. I need to respect both of those 13,” Wagner said. “If you put an artificial reef in off shore that people can’t see and the sand accumulates behind it, the sand comes back and so do the beachgoers. If they go to Broad Beach now, there’s nowhere to sit.”