Conservancy Allots Funds to Improve Beach Access

About $375,000 in Coastal Conservancy funds will be granted this summer to restore three major beach access points along the Encinitas and Leucadia bluffs, including a new stairway to the popular Swami’s surfing area.

Gail Odom, Conservancy access program manager, said the county Parks and Recreation Department is scheduled to submit a grant application this week for two of the projects--repairs on the damaged stairs at D Street south of Moonlight State Beach and improvement of Stone Steps at the south end of Leucadia State Beach.

Both of the stairways and another access point at Sea Cliff County Park near Swami’s surfing area sustained damage during the 1982-83 winter storms that battered the entire Southern California coast.

Odom said that the Sea Cliff stairway may involve relocation of the structure to the north of the present site over a property easement obtained from the Self Realization Fellowship as part of a settlement for a violation of state Coastal Commission regulations. Jack Liebster, spokesman for the Coastal Commission, said that the religious organization had failed to obtain a permit before it ordered a massive grading of the Encinitas oceanfront bluffs in April, 1981. The group was fined $15,000 and told to provide to the county a bluff easement to provide access to the popular surfing spot.

Lawsuits by the commission and the religious group will be dropped following the settlement approved by state coastal commissioners last week at their meeting in Ukiah, Liebster said. The $15,000 fine, one of the largest assessed by the commission, will be given to the Coastal Conservancy for beach access projects.

The grading by the Fellowship was done to lessen the steepness of the slope in an attempt to stabilize the oceanfront bluffs, explained Chuck Damm, assistant director of the San Diego district offices of the commission. The damaged slope has since been replanted, he said.