Founded in Malibu, the organization has a national and international role affecting environmental decisions impacting coastlines worldwide
“We founded Surfrider Foundation in ’84,” said Jefferson “Zuma Jay” Wagner, who co-manages the Malibu Pier, served twice as Malibu’s mayor and owns Malibu’s oldest surf shop. “Surfrider was founded 10 years prior tocityhood.”
Surfrider Foundation, Wagner noted, is a nonprofit organization that had its beginnings on Surfrider Beach — a group of Malibu surfers were concerned about increasing coastal development at their favorite surf spot, and they took action, forming a nonprofit organization that is recognized worldwide for its advocacy.
As the Foundation celebrates its 40th anniversary, Wagner reflected on its impressive spearheading of many coastal and ocean environmental causes over the years.
“Surfrider was instrumental in getting the world surfing reserve established at Surfrider Beach,” he said. “Lance Carson was also very active in the Foundation.” Carson was a Malibu legend who was recognized as one of the best surfers in the world in the 1960s, Wagner noted.
How it all began
The event that motivated the founders of Surfrider Foundation to become proactive advocates is legendary in the surfing world. In 1983, the first time a bulldozer started carving a channel outflow for the lagoon toward the point at Malibu’s Surfrider Beach, Carson went up and tried to explain what the State Parks personnel were doing might ruin the world-class wave.
The park ranger’s response to Carson’s concerns was dismissive. He said, “I don’t know who you are, but you are not part of this conversation.” Then, the ranger continued to give instructions to the operator of the bulldozer.
According to Surfrider’s website, Carson tried to protest and a young grom from Malibu even sat down in front of the bulldozer. However, the park ranger just ignored them as the Caterpillar D-4 bulldozer fired up. Carson pulled the grommet out of the way, and the destruction of Malibu’s first point began.
Malibu’s Andy Lyon, who grew up in the colony, well remembers those days. He recalls that Steve Woods and Glenn Hening tried to stop the bulldozer.
Hening is quoted on the organization’s website as saying, “Those guys at State Parks are destroying first point — I tried to stop them, but they just ignored me! They took down the ‘Surfrider Beach’ sign and changed the name to Malibu Lagoon State Park.”
Hening continued, “They carved up the lagoon, and when it starts to overflow, they bulldoze a channel straight toward the pier — the outflow gouges a channel across the bottom and the shape [of the wave] has been completely ruined andthe State Parks guys could care less.”
Henning and Lance were soon joined by Chris Blakely and Tom Pratte, an expert on the California Coastal Act. Joined by a group of surfers who were concerned about the environmental threats posed by escalating coastal development at their favorite surf break, Surfrider Beach, the trio started the nascent Surfrider Foundation.
Lyon is critical of Surfrider for its position supporting a second lagoon project. His view is that the organization “stabbed Malibu in the back” by ultimately giving its imprimatur to the second project, which Lyon maintains rendered Surfrider beach “a mess.” He has a skeptical perspective about the organization being beneficial to Malibu, stating, “Surfrider Foundation may do good things internationally, but it’s ironic that when it comes to Malibu — the place that was the genesis of its existence — Surfrider went along with the second lagoon project and now, the point is horrible; the surf has a big bump in it.”
Independent of the controversy about the Malibu Lagoon, which engendered the formation of Surfrider Foundation, the organization has burgeoned over the last four decades.
Forty years on, Surfrider Foundation has a national and an international coastal advocacy presence
Over the years, Surfrider has grown to more than 200 chapters and student clubs fighting for more than 100 active environmental campaigns across the country. Starting with the foundation’s success in 2014 advocating California’s statewide ban on single-use plastic bags — the first in the nation — the organization has helped to pass 134 plastic ban laws nationwide, thereby helping to preserve ocean and coastal ecosystems and to reduce plastics in the ocean, much of which ultimately goes into food sources for humans and other species.
“Surfrider Foundation has been very instrumental in addressing the Global Plastics Treaty, including the huge issue regarding small plastic pellets that find their way into all of our oceans with no enforcement stopping that from happening.” said Katina Zinner, who grew up on Malibu’s beaches and swimming offshore in Malibu and still does so now.
Surfrider launched its Ocean Friendly Restaurant Program in 2013, an effort to drive change in consumers’ behavior regarding the use of disposable plastics. The program recognizes restaurants that are committed to cutting out wasteful single-use plastics.
Surfrider.org provides a map allowing consumers to locate ocean-friendly restaurants and a user-friendly way for restaurants to join the program. Surfrider is expanding as it launches an ocean-friendly hotels page as well.
On America’s East Coast, the organization has been impactful in many coastal environmental safety efforts. Examples include when the foundation prevailed in an action to retain beach access for surfers at the Jersey Shore along the borough of Deal, just north of Asbury Park. Surfrider has also garnered numerous successes in ensuring beach access along other parts of the East Coast. The foundation’s Virginia Beach Chapter helped ensure that state legislators voted down a bill that would have opened their coastline to gas and oil exploration. Finally, the foundation won a public beach access case in Maine when that state’s Supreme Judicial Court unanimously ruled in McGarvey v. Whittredge that private ownership rights in the intertidal lands do not allow the oceanfront property owners to exclude the public from crossing the wet sand to reach the ocean for scuba diving access.
Here in Southern California, the organization has spearheaded efforts to ensure that all can enjoy America’s coastal beaches and has worked on ensuring clean water protection at the border between the United States and Mexico. It settled a lawsuit against the International Boundary and Water Commission, which required the IBWC to research the feasibility of using environmentally sensitive ponding systems rather than chemical wastewater treatment for the border area. In 2008, the foundation won a huge victory when the California Coastal Commission ruled against a proposed SR-241 toll road extension that would have threatened San Onofre State Park and Trestles surf beaches.
Surfrider has many international chapters, all of which strive to ensure that marine ecosystems are protected. Its Climate Action Program is designed to connect volunteers to restoration projects that help protect local coastlines from erosion, sequester carbon, remove invasive species, and protect local ecosystems.
The organization’s most successful program is its Blue Water Task Force, established in 1990. The volunteer-operated water testing, educational, and advocacy program provides valuable health information to beach goers, creating public awareness and the political will to find and fix sources of beach pollution along our nation’s coasts.
Celebrating Surfrider Foundation’s four decades as an environmental advocacy organization that now has a worldwide presence, Zuma Jay Wagner notes that it all began at Surfrider beach in Malibu. Holding up a decal designed when the organization celebrated its first quarter century, he notes that the foundation and like-minded citizens and organizations have much to do as they strive to protect oceans, beach access, and clean water all the while fighting against plastic pollution and grappling with climate change and sea level rise.