Broad Beach could be simply known as “no beach” these days, and the state continues making waves against proponents who have spent three years pushing to get sand back on the mile-long stretch of Malibu.
After a back-and-forth hearing at the California Coastal Commission in December, homeowners are going back to the drawing board, withdrawing a years-in-the-making application to truck in hundreds of thousands of cubic yards of sand for a heavily eroded stretch of Broad Beach.
So far, the 121 property owners of the Broad Beach Geological Hazardous Abatement District (GHAD) have incurred over $8 million in costs out of a $20 million budget for the project, primarily on government-requested engineering and environmental studies.
And on the eve of the crucial December hearing where the GHAD hoped to obtain final approvals, CCC staff submitted a massive 140-page report adding more conditions for approval of a Conditional Development Permit (CDP) for the sand project.
“The staff report content came as a surprise and disappointment. It revived issues thought to be resolved and added new ones, as well,” attorney Kenneth Ehrlich, who represents the GHAD, wrote to the CCC.
Ehrlich went on to indicate great frustration with the CCC, having spent three years working on getting the elements in order.
Now, the earliest the GHAD is likely to get the project in front of the CCC is during the May meeting, according to project manager and Malibu West HOA President Mark Goss.
The mile-long stretch of beach in western Malibu has washed away in recent years, which resulted in property owners putting up an emergency rock wall revetment in 2010 to save houses and property.
“There is no beach anymore,” Goss said. “It’s crazy, the water is right up against the rocks. It’s become a public safety issue.”
Steve Hudson, CCC district manager, defended his agency in a phone interview with The Malibu Times.
“We’d asked from the very beginning for certain information that it took them some time to provide … and we’d communicated our conditions from day one,” Hudson said.
One condition was the amount of sand that could be trucked in, and the timing of it. The GHAD wanted to bring in 600,000 cubic yards of sand from quarries in Moorpark; but the CCC staff balked at the amount, bringing all sand in at once and placement of it.
“They wanted to bring in sand and build the beach out to an extreme width – wider than it had been historically – which would impact the marine environment,” Hudson said.
The CCC wants to reduce the amount of sand to 300,000 cubic yards, then “renourish the beach as needed over time rather than on a set schedule,” Hudson said. Less sand would be needed because the beach would only be made as wide as it was before, and no sand would be poured on top of a designated rocky intertidal habitat area.
CCC staff also enforces Malibu’s Local Coastal Plan (LCP), which stipulates that “shoreline protection devices should be located as far landward as feasible,” Hudson said. “Especially at the down-coast end, there are places [the emergency rock wall] can move inward almost a hundred feet.”
Other conditions have to do with the placement of the rock wall and proposed sand dunes in relation to existing septic systems and leach fields.
Hudson said his bottom line is “balancing the need for protection with the need for public access.”
A subsequent meeting of GHAD homeowners confirmed to Ehrlich that they “remain committed to the project.”
Both Ehrlich and Goss estimate the sand replenishment project should be underway in Malibu by September 2015.
The CCC is just one of several agencies that must approve the GHAD’s proposed project before it can move forward. The State Lands Commission and the Army Corps of Engineers have indicated they’ll delay their approvals until the CCC is satisfied. The Regional Water Board must also approve.