Last night a town hall meeting went down to discuss the erosion at ######, and how it can be resolved. Surfpulse has already posted a solid summary of the issue and the different approaches discussed, thanks to them for the quick reporting. The key point to recognize is that the city council is meeting today at 2pm, and it's an open meeting for people to raise their concerns. You can also email oceanbeach@beach######.com, which may be the last chance for the surf community to address how unpopular armoring the beach with rocks is.
Town Hall Meeting on Sloat Erosion
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Rev.MCC
31 weeks ago
31 weeks ago
The Surf pulse article is good... (I had no idea that back of my head looked like that) And gets the tone just right in my opinion about the need to address the protection of the "big pipe full of poo" and the tensions around long & short term approaches..
I left last nights meeting with two fears:
First that short term politically fraught issues are usually solved badly and the simplest way forward (throwing big rocks off the edge) will only kick the can down the road a couple (maybe 10) of years which feels like exactly the style of the supervisors & the mayor...
Second that once we deal with this issue today at 2? then the sense of urgency goes away until the next "crisis" when we will again be presented with horrible "emergency" options repeating the cycle yet again...
So today at 2 I will be there to watch it all unfold...
Hope to see some of you there...
peaceout
M
over_the_falls
31 weeks ago
31 weeks ago
Knowing how the SF government works, those rocks they throw over the ledge will be fully compostable and available at most retailers near you.
King of Kooks
31 weeks ago
31 weeks ago
Can we take that apt building in Pacifica and throw it over the cliff @ ###### ? Instant breakwater.
dsx2000
31 weeks ago
31 weeks ago
can someone please explain why throwing big rocks over the edge at ###### lot is a bad thing for the surf? the bars that we surf are some 200-300 yards offshore and at the south lot with all those rocks they tossed there the ocean only gets up there at high tide. and south lot has good waves too. i dont get it.
tracey
31 weeks ago
31 weeks ago
I believe putting big rocks will cause erosion elsewhere, sandbar shift, etc. It tends to have unintended consequences.
For example, where my parents live on lake Michigan, a breakwall was built to keep sand out of the boat channel. 1 year later, 3 houses are about to be condemned because the big rocks they put in the water caused the waves to shift and erode something else, like the land those houses were on. Ooops. Hello homeowners vs county lawsuit.
dsx2000
31 weeks ago
31 weeks ago
a pile of rocks on the shore and a jetty are very different animals. they already have rocks at south lot. i guess thats why main lot is washing out. seems like there is more sand up north to vicente and ###### than going south to funston. those are some pretty big sand cliffs to errode. i guess it doesnt matter what we think. the city is going to dump some big rocks right away and then sit on their ass for 10 years.
tracey
31 weeks ago
31 weeks ago
Yeah, from my not exactly informed position, there is no winning the land vs sea war.
But I am hopeful that >someone< is weighing options to try and get the maximum protection value for the minimum environmental impact. Or at the very least a 50 year solution > 10 year solution.
Really no matter what gets decided, the ocean will eat it. The ocean is hungry.
marklukach
31 weeks ago
31 weeks ago
From my opinion, we have no guarantee that armoring up ###### will hurt the waves. Truth is, it might even help by creating a nifty little pointbreak-esque thing. However, there is also the chance that the sand displacement, which is inevitable and unpredictable, could do damage. The waves and sandbars at OB are made by nature, not us. We go in there and interfere with the very natural shifting of sand and water, there will definitely be SOME impact. That impact remains unpredictable, but could turn out to be a big bummer.
Like @Rev.Mcc, I too was worried that we're going to end up with a short-term solution to a long-term project. The OB Task Force predicted this very problem almost a decade ago, and had feasible, researched solutions to offer....that were not implemented. I really hope that we look at this in the long-term. If the traffic is a problem for 6 months, so be it, at least we don't unleash this unpredictable Pandora's Box by throwing rocks on the beach.
In other news, Save The Waves will live-tweet the city hall meeting, which stars in about 5 minutes from the time I am posting this.
soulivong
31 weeks ago
31 weeks ago
I just read up on http://www.savethewaves.org/news/view/109
In a nutshell...managed retreat. Man...that's awesome! Sanity prevails. One cannot control OB. We can only control our distance to it. Again to reiterate, that is the most sane plan I have EVER heard.
