I wanted to make sure you are aware of a 50-year coastal protection program the Army Corps of Engineers is proposing for Encinitas and Solana Beach. It has been described minimally in The Coast News here and here. I believe this is an issue that we as Encinitans should be involved in. The ACOE will hold a public briefing on this project in our council chambers this Wednesday, 2/6, at 1800 (6 PM). The public will be able to ask questions and speak to their concerns.
The ACOE has been studying these issues for about 10 years. It started out evaluating ten alternatives, including:
No Action; Managed Retreat; Beach Nourishment at Various Increments; Notch fills; Hybrid-Beach nourishment and notch fill; Visible Breakwaters; Submerged Breakwater/Artificial Reef; Groins; Seawalls; Revetment
Preliminary screening eliminated the following alternatives:
Managed Retreat; Emergent Breakwaters; Submerged Breakwater/Artificial Reef; Groins; Revetments
This leaves:
No Action, representing unmanaged retreat; Beach Nourishment at various times in the future (this is a short-term fix; we've just completed the 3rd beach nourishment program since about 2000); Notch fills; a hybrid approach involving beach nourishment and notch fill; and Seawalls.
It is not surprising that the ACOE has already eliminated Managed Retreat, which recent comprehensive cost-benefit studies in Monterey Bay have show is the best environmental and economic alternative in the long term. For more information on this, see pdf reports from USC.edu, Monterey Bay.NOAA.gov and Costal.ca.gov.
These investigators, led by Dr. David Revell, have been evaluating the costs and short- and long-term benefits of a variety of approaches to shoreline preservation and restoration (beach nourishment, revetments, sea walls, armor rock, artificial reefs, etc.) and has come to some very interesting conclusions. I believe they have concluded that all but Managed Retreat are basically pouring money down a rat hole. Mother Nature will win in the end, whatever we do, and we are just delaying the final outcome at great expense to the taxpayers.
Managed Retreat, however, definitely does not satisfy the influential property and business owners, who are pushing to have their property protected at taxpayer expense.
The footprint for the proposed Encinitas/Solana Beach project is 3-4 times larger than the recently completed beach nourishment program and about two-thirds of it would occur here in Encinitas. The remainder is off San Elijo Lagoon and Solana Beach.
I recently took a very brief look at the appendix covering impacts to nearshore resources in the ACOE EIS/EIR for its proposed Encinitas/Solana Beach beach protection program and found it woefully wanting. In addition to eliminating a discussion on managed retreat, the ACOE document doesn't address environmental or fisheries impacts in the borrow sites at all. In fact, the only mention of "borrow sites" was to mention that a cultural resources survey will be conducted prior to dredging. It is likely, based on research conducted in nearshore waters, that biological resources in these areas vary substantially. However, studies assessing potential impacts to these habitats have failed to address this variation or adequately evaluate the ecological value of any of the proposed borrow sites and use the differences in ecological value as a criterion for site selection. These evaluations should be used to ensure that any dredging that occurs avoids the areas of highest ecological value, as demonstrated by intensive surveys by qualified benthic ecologists with experience in this habitat. Basically, previous studies have evaluated the "weeds" in the system, i.e., the ephemeral organisms living in the upper few inches of the sand, rather than the "trees", i.e., the long-lived organisms that live down to 2 or more feet deep in the sand (and equal to dredging depth) and contribute the most to fisheries. A consequence of this flawed approach is that the potential effects of dredging and the projections for recovery times are grossly underestimated.
In the past, agencies have not understood these issues and have accepted this approach. However, we are seeing changes in agency philosophies regarding the approaches for evaluating borrow sites and beach restoration programs. The California Coastal Commission is now starting to request studies addressing the issues involving the "weeds" and the "trees", which is the approach taken in discussions of nearly every other ecosystem subjected to development activities. (For example, when we assess the effects of clear-cutting in a redwood forest, an activity analogous to the proposed dredging program, we make the decisions based on the long-lived redwoods and other trees in the forest, not on the ephemeral grasses and short-lived shrubs growing on the forest floor.) In addition, the National Marine Fisheries Service appears to be leaning this direction.
However, the bottom line here is that the ACOE has completely omitted any discussion of Managed Retreat and borrow-site impacts from a proposed 50-year project that would require dredging many times more sand for the beaches in Encinitas and Solana Beach than all the dredging done for beach "nourishment" to date. These omissions are unacceptable. These environmental issues need to be addressed to protect the environment and our fisheries. Moreover, we need to protect the taxpayers. Particularly in light of sea-level rise, this is a battle that we cannot and will not win. We should make a wise decision to cut our losses and put the money into efforts that make sense for ALL taxpayers, not just wealthy landowners and businesses.
