With 40 plus years in Malibu, my salad days long gone and well into the main course, I have more time to sit back and be entertained by the local passing parade, a sort of microcosmic civic sitcom sure to be picked up someday. Lately most fascinating is the by-play in the local newspapers regarding the dreaded Assembly Bill 947 as presented in the May 8 Malibu Times and the Surfside News of the same date. Where the Times contained several letters on AB 947 and Times Publisher Arnold York devoted his editorial to it, there was zero-presentation about it in the Surfside News either in a letter or in Editor-in-Chief Anne Soble’s editorial. How could this be?
Now don’t get me wrong. I like Arnold and Anne, and I considered both their publications valuable to the community. After all, they usually print my stuff. On environmental issues, Anne’s heart is in the right place, although she seems to get-well-“over the top” is I believe the current expression, and the only thing I really have against Arnold is the choice of name for his newspaper. Anne and Arnold, that alliterative pair, will they be remembered with other of America’s great historic duos, Jefferson and Hamilton, Lewis and Clark, Bonnie and Clyde, Abbott and Costello? But I digress.
The main thing these days is AB 947, which is a California Assembly bill to add Chapter 6 to Division 27 of the California Public Resources Code. This addition includes, under proposed Section 36550, a shopping list of five “general principles of coastal erosion and response.” The least preferential of these, Section 36650(e), has to do with “hard protection devices,” read “sea walls.” It is this (e), this Dreaded (e), that has some local knickers twisting. Most vocal, perhaps, is the Malibu Association of Realtors, whose view is that (e) opens the door for the Coastal Commission to deny any and all applications for sea wall installations either for new construction or even repairs, because under Subsection 36550(e)(2), evidence must be presented that such structures “will not cause erosion of adjacent properties, and, consequently, potentially lead to further hardening of the coastline.” The problem is, it is generally true that sea walls in theory cause some degree of increased erosion, and many fear that this puts the Coastal Commission’s camel nose into the tent. Considering the dog-and-pony show character of the typical public agency hearing process, such fear is well founded. Long experience indicates that reason, fact, and logic run a poor second to the personal agendas of public hearing officers.
Look. The purported reason for this legislation is to ameliorate losses of beach sand along California’s coast. These losses are caused by essentially two mechanisms: [1] the back-wash of periodically especially high surf that carries sand offshore beyond the littoral zone and [2] long-shore littoral “drift,” i.e., wave-induced transport along the shore that eventually dumps sand into some submarine canyon. Both kinds of deposits in Malibu move east, although the latter moves much more rapidly. The idea that wave erosion of cliffs in Malibu produces a significant volume of beach sand and that such cliffs therefore should not be protected by seawalls is wrong, and that will continue to be the case especially as long as there is a Pacific Coast Highway. With the Coastal Commission, however, do you suppose…?
Essentially all beach sand in Malibu comes from mountain streams east of Point Mugu. West of there, sands from the Ventura and Santa Clara rivers are lost in Mugu Submarine Canyon. In Malibu, two “cells” of sand movement occur, one east of Point Dume and the other west of it. Very little sand moves east of Point Dume, because it is lost in Dume Submarine Canyon. The westernmost substantial source of beach sand east of Point Dume is from Ramirez Canyon, and from there beach sand increases in volume as more and more, streams carry it to the shore. Although proponents of AB 947 are correct in their assertion that beach sand deficits in California are due largely to terrestrial alterations of streams that trap sand, such would not be the case in Malibu even if there is sand deficit here, a matter yet to be established. The only alteration that did affect the sand supply was the construction of the Rindge dam, and since its filling, periodic high flows carry the sand over it.
Therefore, the littoral drift equilibrium has been reestablished in Malibu, and whether or not sea walls are constructed there has nothing whatever to do with local sand deficits at various other locations along the California coast. Streams in Malibu now contribute sand to the shore in the same manner as they have for thousands of years. Most of this sand is lost in either the Santa Monica or Redondo submarine canyons of Santa Monica Bay.
No, the only legitimate argument the Coastal Commission has in applying proposed AB 947 in Malibu is that one sea wall begets another. This is because sea walls reflect wave energy that otherwise would be spent in breaking on the shore. See, the energy carried in waves is essentially potential. When the wave breaks, that energy becomes kinetic and hence capable of doing work, which is what erosion requires. Because waves approach the shore at an angle, a sea wall, or in Malibu more likely a timber bulkhead containing a drain field, transfers much of this energy to the next property. So in Malibu when neighbor A builds a sea wall, neighbor B to the east takes it in the ear, so to speak, until he builds his sea wall. Then it’s neighbor C’s turn in the barrel. And clearly, as it rings out in Sacramento, this state of affairs must cease!
The thing of it is, a solution has always been available. It’s called rip-rap. Rip-rap is a mass of stones placed in a manner so as to reduce erosion. Along the Malibu coast, rip-rap consists of large boulders from about 3 to 6 feet in longest dimension. When placed adjacent to a sea wall or a bulkhead, the wave energy, either potential or kinetic, that otherwise would be reflected off the wall, is consumed by the movement of the water through the interstices of the rip-rap or the shifting of individual boulders. Clever? I should say. So very soon in Sacramento, right behind Hannah Beth-Jackson carrying her banner, “Excelsior!,” I expect to see MAR members carrying their own: “Rip-Rap, Aha! Dreaded (e) Be Damned!” Or doesn’t anyone read Thurber these days?
Don Michael