Environment |

Southern California coastal towns are losing valuable sand, putting some beaches at risk

Editor’s note: This is the first story in a series looking at sand erosion issues in Southern California.

Gone are the bonfires, the volleyball nets and the sunbathers from some sand-depleted beaches in Southern California.

Memories are all that’s left, as the force of the ocean’s waves menace homes, parking lots and an important rail line that hugs the coast. In place of plush sand, walls of gray boulders now serve as barriers against the sea where beach towels once lay.

Millions of residents and tourists flock year-round to Southern California’s iconic coast. Each year, Los Angeles County beaches attract more than 50 million visitors; an estimated 6 million people visit Laguna Beach alone each year.

But the coastal landscape is dramatically changing in Southern California as the sand disappears from several beloved beaches. One study predicts two-thirds of the beaches could be gone by 2100 if no one intervenes.

And Southern California is not alone. More than half the coastline in Florida is critically eroded. Coastal dunes in New Jersey have been devastated by storms.

The endangered beaches are more than just pretty places to sunbathe. They protect development from the ravages of hard-hitting waves. They provide a place for important species of birds and animals to thrive. They generate jobs, as well as tax dollars. And, yes, they provide easy access spots for a day trip or a vacation that attract people from all over to roast hot dogs, hold weddings, snap family photos and just soak in the sunsets.

“The coast is part of who we are as Californians, so much so that beach access is a constitutional right for all Californians regardless of ZIP code,” says the California Coastal Commission. “The coast is one of the few places inland residents can go to escape the heat without spending a lot of money.”

While some of the region remains plush with sand, other popular beaches are quickly disappearing despite warning signs and calls for assistance.

Coastal damage growing

In recent years, streets and parking lots have flooded in Newport Beach, entire beaches in Dana Point and San Clemente have disappeared and big swells threaten beachfront homes with waves crashing over walls and onto patios. In September, the coastal railway line shut down in San Clemente for the second time in a year due to damage; it will cost millions and take months to fix – a wake-up call for how much is at stake.

Some wide, sandy beaches, such as Huntington Beach or Manhattan Beach, have no problem accommodating the summer crowds that come in droves to enjoy the year-round sun and surf. But in other areas, especially south Orange County, coastal planners are scrambling for an answer to sand loss, an enigma complicated by the unpredictable sea.

“Back in the ’80s, Capistrano Beach was the epitome of beach culture. You congregated around the fire pits at night,” said Mike Moodian, a college lecturer and documentary maker who grew up near the Dana Point beach. “It looks like a wasteland today.

“It is a hellscape.”

Drought conditions and strong storms have contributed to the disappearing beaches, and sea-level rise in future years will bring a wave of additional problems. But despite dire warnings, countless studies and solutions laid out by consultants, engineers and scientists decades ago, inertia and a lack of funding have contributed to erosion of valuable beaches.

Much of the region’s sand woes can be traced to man-made development and even gum-footed, overlapping bureaucracy taking years and even decades to act on solutions.

“It’s important we have some oversight of where the sand is coming from and going. But there doesn’t need to be three groups that do this,” said Riley Pratt, senior environmental scientist for the Orange Coast District of State Parks.

Could more have been done decades earlier to protect the beaches and coastal infrastructure communities have come to depend on? Nearly everyone spoken to agrees the damage predicted is now being seen and, if solutions aren’t swift, the Southern California coast — and the economy it supports — will surely suffer.

Where’s the sand, man?

Historically, Southern California’s coast was narrow slivers of sand dotted with rolling dunes and native vegetation where wildlife thrived.

Then, humans came along and altered the natural landscape. They built up the beaches with sand taken from the construction of harbors and ports, transforming the coast into expansive playgrounds. Beachfront homes and businesses popped up, taking advantage of ocean views on the deceivingly wide coast.

Since the 1920s, more than 35 million cubic yards of sand has been placed between Will Rogers State Beach in Pacific Palisades and Torrance Beach, resulting in increased beach widths of up to 600 feet, with much of the sand coming from the development of the Marina del Rey harbor and the Hyperion Sewage Treatment Plant.

North Orange County beaches got extra sand from the Naval Weapons Station build-out in the 1940s through ’70s, with smaller sand projects through the years. Newport beaches were filled in from that town’s harbor build in the ’30s; the same story for Dana Point’s coast, with that harbor created in the ’60s.

Like highways that suffer potholes and need expansion as more people use them, beaches historically have been maintained as infrastructure by governmental entities that recognize they are an important recreational and economic draw, as well as a vital buffer from the sea for all that’s been built.

“If we have no sand, it’s like a car and we’ve taken the engine out of it,” said UC Irvine civil engineering professor Brett Sanders, a leading expert on coastal erosion.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the federal government have long been the stewards of the region’s coastline, with sand replenishment projects undertaken since the 1930s.

John Kriss, president of the Surfside Storm Water Protection District, has been keeping tabs on the region’s biggest effort, the Surfside-Sunset Beach Replenishment Project, since the mid-1980s.

Kriss argues federal officials have walked away from a congressional directive — the 1962 Rivers and Harbors Act — passed after studies showed the construction of flood control channels, dams, ports and harbors was causing the region’s chronically shrinking beaches. The infrastructure blocked the sand’s natural flow and its ability to reach and replenish the coast.

“The story was well-known six decades ago, but has been forgotten, historical context has been lost,” Kriss said. “The stories in the media regarding this erosion problem are almost entirely about global warming and climate change, the current narrative.”

But there’s more to the story, said Kriss, who has lived in the Surfside Colony north of Huntington Beach since 1977. Much like today, as early as the 1950s it became apparent the beaches were disappearing at a fast pace, with homes from Surfside to Newport Beach nearly falling into the ocean.

“It was a man-made problem and without a man-made solution, the beaches would erode continuously forever,” he said. “But it’s all been forgotten.”

The solution, at least for north Orange County beaches, was to replenish the sand every five to seven years at Surfside, with currents and waves pushing the sediment south to seed beaches all the way to Newport Beach.

The big Army Corps of Engineers project kicked off in 1947 with 1.2 million cubic yards, and another 5.3 million was hauled from the build-out of the Seal Beach Naval Weapons Station in 1964, creating plush beaches for north Orange County to enjoy for years to come.

Replenishing programs followed every five to seven years, adding more sand dredged from the ocean to make up for the estimated 350,000 cubic yards lost annually. The replenishment projects continued until 2009. Then word came in 2016 there was no funding that year. Or the following year. Or the one after that.

“All the other agencies put up the money, but Congress never put the money up again,” Kriss said.

Thirteen years have passed since the last big replenishment at Surfside, and signs of a shrinking sand buffer are being seen. The Newport Peninsula flooded in 2020 when a big swell sent ocean water over the beach and into the parking lots and streets, stranding drivers for hours. The ocean is inching its way closer to Pacific Coast Highway and closer to the cliffs at Dog Beach, where Kriss walks to survey the shore a few times a week.

“For 30 years they had a solution. But then they stepped away and there was no one to resupply it,” he said. “This bothers me that we have a man-created problem, studied, engineered, solution designed — and people have just walked away from it. I find that really irritating.”

He wonders who will take responsibility when the ocean wreaks havoc on houses, roads and railways.

“People will say we didn’t know this,” Kriss said. “Oh, really?”

Funding for the Surfside-Sunset project and another in San Clemente has been approved and sand is on the way, according to Susie Ming, project manager at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Los Angeles District.

For the long-awaited Surfside-Sunset project, U.S. Rep. Michelle Steel this year secured $15.5 million in federal funding to bring in 1.75 million cubic yards of sand, with non-federal agencies putting up the remaining $7.65 million. Design documents are being finalized and construction will be started by next fall or the fall of 2024, according to Ming.

The project was in the Corps’ budget proposal to do every five years, but it competes nationally and didn’t previously get the money, she said.

The same waiting game has been going on further south in San Clemente, which started planning for a big sand project back in 1999. More than 20 years later, sand hasn’t yet arrived. The earliest the project could start is September 2023.

Tom Bonigut, former public works director for San Clemente, was assigned two decades ago to help the city plan for the sand. The Army Corps did a study in 2000 to say sand would be needed in future years.

Then, the city waited. And waited.

Federal approval of the project’s construction didn’t come until 2014. And then the city again waited, this time for the money.

This year, the federal funds were finally approved.

“Just getting to the finish line is the maddening part of it,” Bonigut said.

Long wait for funding

At a stretch just south of North Beach in San Clemente, what’s left of the sand is only accessible a few hours a day when tides are at their lowest. The rest of the time, the beach is underwater, waves lapping onto rocks and slippery stairs. It’s a prime example of access impacts. A chain was put up to prohibit people from navigating the dangerous, slippery stairs where an 8-foot drop was created in an area once covered by sand.

But the sand the city is waiting on won’t address this area because, 20 years ago when planning for the replenishment project started, it wasn’t yet a troubled area. Beaches in need can’t simply be tacked onto existing proposed projects; the years-long process would have to start over.

San Clemente tried to do smaller-scale projects without relying on federal funding. About five years ago, it brought in a pile of sand to North Beach from the Santa Ana River in Newport Beach — but the timing was off and much of the sand was taken by the sea during a series of winter storms.

“There were some challenges and successes, but we quickly learned this is so expensive, we really need the feds for cost sharing. We could not afford to do any project on a sizable scale,” Bonigut said.

The bottom line, he said: “Things could have been happening if the money came sooner.

“I thought this would be long done by the time I left. It seems like every step, it took way longer than we expected,” Bonigut said. “I used to work at the Army Corps, I know delays happen. But 15-plus years for a feasibility study? That’s pretty much ridiculous. And once it gets done, it’s subject to budgetary pressures. It’s just frustration.”

U.S. Rep. Mike Levin pushed this year to get the $9.3 million approved for the initial phase of the San Clemente project. Long term, it’s meant to be a 50-year project that would have periodic replenishment, said Doland Cheung, a project manager at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Los Angeles District.

Although the authorized cost of the initial nourishment is $16.2 million, the total authorized cost for the 50-year project is $255.8 million.

“It’s not atypical for a project in the program to take 20 years. It’s not unheard of that the Corps would have projects go on this long,” Cheung said.

It literally takes an act of Congress to move projects through each phase, from initial approval, to construction approval, to funding approval, he said. “Corps projects can be fairly lengthy.”

While putting sand on the beach sounds simple, from an engineering standpoint “it is very complicated,” he added.

“There are people and priorities across this whole nation that want their projects funded and there’s … a set limit of funding that the government can provide,” said Dena M. O’Dell, chief of public affairs for the Army Corps’ L.A. district.

The Army Corps is working on $91 billion in planned projects nationally, O’Dell said, from $15.2 million for aquatic ecosystem restoration of the Alabama River Lakes to $2.3 million for the harbor maintenance trust at the Memphis Harbor in Tennessee.

Orange County projects are another need looking for a piece of that national pie.

Where is the loss?

Tracking beach loss is no easy feat, with shore widths subject to variables such as seasonal changes, drought conditions and storm frequency. One big storm could swipe several feet away from a beach. Another big swell could dump a bunch of new sand.

“We naturally had sand in our systems. We naturally had a pretty good amount of sand, on top of our cobble base, which sometimes got thinner and sometimes got wider,” UCI professor Sanders said. “My concern is that now, we’re losing that sand.”

Natural sand supply has been locked in place by inland development and the concreting of channels — sand that would naturally make its way down rivers to replenish beaches. Drought conditions the past few years haven’t helped, with little rain to push sand stuck inland down to the coast.

Researchers and planners are dedicating more time and attention to which beaches are in danger, using high-tech data to track trends and spot trouble before it’s too late.

UCI grad student Daniel Kahl recently analyzed satellite imagery — a project possible with a $675,000 grant from NASA — to measure beaches through recent decades to find out which are eroding at the fastest pace.

Some beaches are flush with sand and there’s little present concern. Huntington Beach grew from about 430 feet in 1990 to 560 feet in 2020, with so much sand space the city is lobbying to hold the 2028 Olympic Games’ surfing competitions there, an event that would bring millions in tourism dollars, as well as worldwide recognition.

The images at the next beach over, at the Newport Pier, show a slightly shrinking beach that went from 340 feet in 1990 to 310 feet in 2020.

The data, which uses the width at mean sea level, indicates more drastic losses further south. At Capistrano Beach in Dana Point, the beach went from 390 feet to 260 feet over 30 years. South San Clemente in 1990 was at about 200 feet and held steady into the early 2000s, but shrank to 160 feet in 2010 and, as of 2020, was at 80 feet.

Just two years later, sections at both Capistrano and South San Clemente at higher tides are now completely underwater. At Capistrano a basketball court and restrooms had to be torn out because of damage.

Even beaches that have plenty of sand today should start to plan for the future or risk impacts to recreation, revenue and tourism in years to come from erosion and sea level rise.

For now, most Los Angeles County beaches remain wide, built up decades ago and benefiting from regular sand nourishment projects through the years. Additionally, sand on the northern end of Santa Monica Bay pushes south with waves and currents toward Manhattan Beach, and several breakwaters, groins and jetties in the South Bay reduce sediment movement, according to Philip King,  an economist who for decades has studied impacts of erosion and, more recently, sea-level rise, on coastal communities.

King recently finished a study for Manhattan Beach to look at vulnerable sections of its coast.

Manhattan Beach — 300 to 400 feet wide along most of its coastline — and Los Angeles County could lose out on $107 million in taxes on hotel stays and $39 million in sales tax if there is significant beach erosion, King warns.

“They don’t really have a problem, they don’t have to do anything until mid-century,” King forecasted. “After that, impacts will be in the millions.”

County officials are keeping a careful watch of Malibu and Point Dume/Westward Beach, where a parking lot access road had to be rebuilt last year, said L.A. County Beaches and Harbors spokesperson Nicole Mooradian.

The north portion of Redondo Beach and Torrance Beach are forecast to lose half their sand space by 2040 and be completely eroded by 2100, according to a report by the county in 2016.

“Additionally, visitors from surrounding areas may increase in the future as other beaches are lost,” King’s report says, making them more crowded for everyone. “This will likely increase the demand for beach access at Dockweiler State Beach, Manhattan Beach, and Hermosa Beach.”

No regional approach

Consultants, engineers and planners have long called for state and local governments to take a more regional approach to what they call “sediment management” – minimizing sand erosion and planning how best to save beaches.

Being successful with that could mean taxing developers who mine sand from the rivers that feed the beaches, they’ve said, or finding cost effective ways to get the sediment stuck in storm channels or behind dams to the shore.

“It needs to be done intentionally, it needs to be part of a broader strategy and conversation on sea level rise,” King said. “We have time, but we can’t wait any longer.”

Another challenge: overlapping bureaucracies with an interest in the beaches, from local and state officials, to regulatory agencies and environmental groups.

“The more cooks you have that provide input and get their way, makes these projects more expensive, makes it more complicated,” said Cheung, the Army Corps project manager.

There also are competing interests. Homeowners threatened by the rising waves want immediate seawalls, but those block public access and can erode the beaches. Beachgoers want more sand to play on. And few agree on who should pay for it all.

“How do we balance the protection of the homes and the erasure of the beach?” asks Donne Brownsey, chair of the California Coastal Commission, which is tasked with protecting the coast. “There is nothing easy about this.

“For some communities, sea level rise will have pretty substantial consequences,” she added, “and it’s hard for local government to embrace that.”