Life on the Edge : Cliff Dwellers Struggle to Save Homes From Fury of Sea, Coastal Regulations

During the savage storms of Winter 1983, Carol Ashworth would sit in her roomy pink stucco home on the bluffs overlooking the Pacific in Leucadia and watch the sea go to war with the land.

As waves pounded at the base of the cliff like bazooka blasts, small chunks of earth at the top of the bluff would sometimes topple into the ocean, inches at a time. When the storm waves finally subsided, Ashworth figured she had lost about three feet of property to the sea, bringing her beloved house just that much closer to the brink.

Time to pack up and move on? Not a chance. Like lots of homeowners residing on the fragile cliffs lining San Diego County’s northern coast, Ashworth is not about to be scared off by the whims of Mother Nature.

“It’s not anything that I’m all shook up about,” said Ashworth, a mother of seven and grandmother of three. “I worry more about having an accident on the freeway than about the ocean taking the bluffs out from under my house.”

With the resolve of pioneers staking homesteads in an unfriendly land, residents along the crumbling coastal bluffs of North County are waging an increasingly difficult, high-stakes struggle with the sea. In recent years, property owners scattered up and down the coast have invested untold thousands of dollars to erect seawalls and other protective devices in hopes of armoring the shoreline against the assault of the waves.

Those efforts have escalated as the beaches that once served as a buffer between the cliffs and the sea have been stripped of sand. In many areas where the swells at one time crashed harmlessly hundreds of feet from the bluffs, the ocean now batters the land on nearly a daily basis. That barrage promises only to get worse as the winter storm season approaches.

While many might quake at the thought of living in a house perched on such potentially vulnerable real estate, this hardy band of coastal residents largely shrugs off the threat as an acceptable price to pay for the joy of having unsurpassed views and the ocean at their doorstep.

“You can’t beat living on the bluff,” said Orrin (Bud) Burwell, owner of a seafront home in Encinitas for two decades. “Every sunset is different than the one before. There’s no smog. You generally don’t hear anything except the surf. This time of year you can watch the whales, the porpoises, the surfers.”

Like some of his neighbors, Burwell figures the ocean is not nearly so troublesome a foe as the state and local lawmakers who have passed regulations affecting the property on top of the bluff. The Encinitas City Council, for example, raised the ire of several coastal homeowners last month by adopting stricter regulations on construction activities atop the cliffs and approving a policy that requires homeowners to remove riprap boulders and other storm barriers once an emergency has passed.

“The idea that anything placed at the foot of a bluff to protect it during a storm must then be moved is both unacceptable and foolish,” complained Dolores Mullane, a shoreline resident in Leucadia. “It will only add to the financial burden of trying to protect the bluff.”

Protected or not, the bluffs and homes atop them will likely be one day claimed by the sea, many coastal experts say. Whether it will take centuries or one really big storm, nobody knows.

Most of the homes and condominiums atop the cliffs in North County were erected between 1947 and 1977, a period marked by very benign storms and little erosion along the coast. Lulled into a false sense of confidence, developers hammered together homes near the edge of the bluffs, figuring they had a stable platform that would stand the test of time.

Profound Threat?

In recent years, however, coastal experts have come to believe that bluff erosion poses a profound threat to the high-priced haciendas stretching along the seaboard. During periods of heavy storms and high wave activity, experts have observed undeveloped sections of bluff that eroded hundreds of feet inland in just a few days.

With the potential for such destruction, regulatory agencies such as the state Coastal Commission have firmed up development requirements, prohibiting new homes within 40 feet of the cliff edges.

Some local officials, meanwhile, now maintain that many of the bluff-top homes should never have been built. Like many of her peers, Solana Beach Councilwoman Celine Olson said coastal homeowners and lawmakers have inherited a vexing problem from the bureaucrats of yesteryear.

“They were too optimistic,” Olson griped. “They thought they could beat Mother Nature, but Mother Nature has beaten them, I think.”

Despite such sentiments, some bluff-top homeowners insist the seaside cliffs will weather the decades well. Burwell, for one, said the cliff in front of his home looks virtually the same as it did when he bought the property more than 20 years ago.

“To my knowledge, this area I live in has never been a problem,” Burwell said. “It’s the same, essentially, as it was when the area was first subdivided back in the 1920s. The bluff edge hasn’t changed in 60 years.”

Bluffs Vary

Others aren’t so lucky. Like the tides themselves, the bluffs can vary dramatically from one section to the next. While one homeowner’s sandstone bluff might seem as solid as granite, his neighbor just a cobble’s throw down the coast might be suffering nettlesome erosion problems.

On the northern edge of Solana Beach, the waves have cut sharply into the cliffs, leaving a six-foot section of one house’s foundation teetering over the edge. Elsewhere, condominiums in Encinitas and Solana Beach sit within a few precarious inches of the eroding bluff top.

Some of the most spectacular bluff collapses have occurred on public property. During the 1982-83 storms, a 10-foot chunk of cliff fell into the sea at Grandview Street in Encinitas, taking a public-access stairway with it. During that same period, a stairway at Beacons, a popular beach at the foot of Leucadia Boulevard, was washed out when the bluff crumbled.

Anxious to keep their castles or cottages from toppling into the sea, homeowners up and down the shoreline have erected a patchwork of seawalls. Some are simple piles of boulders that absorb the impact of waves. Some are nothing more than a thin coat of concrete sprayed to harden onto the cliff face. Others are odd-looking wood contraptions slapdashed together without the benefit of permits. Still others are smooth, sophisticated looking concrete edifices that seem capable of withstanding thermonuclear war.

Troublesome Boom

The seawall construction boom has troubled some local officials, who argue that the projects mar the tranquil shoreline ambiance and encroach on public beach space.

Moreover, coastal experts say the flat-faced, concrete seawalls tend to heighten wave action and turbulence, increasing the chances that sand will be stripped from the beaches. Finally, such barriers can increase the scouring effect on adjacent, unprotected bluffs.

“Seawalls are really considered a last resort,” said Paul Webb, a coastal planner with the state Coastal Commission. “When it’s clear that a bluff is retreating in a fashion that will endanger a structure in the near future, we’ll issue permits.”

Steven Apple, planning director in Solana Beach, worries that the community’s beachfront could end up “one giant seawall from one end to the other,” a prospect he finds disturbing.

As Apple sees it, economic realities could dictate just such a result. Many current bluff-top homeowners purchased their cottages years ago and lack the financial wherewithal to afford a high-priced seawall. Gradually, however, those shoreline homes are being snapped up for huge sums by well-to-do doctors, lawyers and other professionals willing to spend money to protect their new investment. A $100,000 seawall is not too big a price to pay.

Indeed, the shoreline protection projects are expensive. The typical bill for a well-engineered concrete seawall is about $1,000 for each foot of bluff that is armored, coastal experts say. Some residents have resorted to other means, such as filling deep wave caves with tons of concrete. But even those efforts, which experts deem a stopgap measure, can run up bills of $50,000 or more.

Staying Put

Whether they’re capable of affording such shoreline protection projects or not, few of the residents are fleeing their homes on the edge of the world.

“There’s something about looking out without any obstruction,” said Paul Harlow, president of the Seacoast Preservation Assn., a group representing about 120 bluff-top homeowners in Encinitas. “One just has that feeling of freedom and repose, just the tremendous feeling of being with nature.”

Bob Gonsett, a shoreline resident in Encinitas, enjoys the sunsets and treasures being able to step outside his door to body surf or jog at low tide.

“It’s nice having an infinite backyard,” Gonsett said. “But, in many ways, living across the street would have been just as nice.”

Along with the joys of living the quintessential Southern California dream come the headaches. Homeowners insurance typically is double that of residents on more solid ground. Geologists tend to become familiar acquaintances. Some residents have reported that banks were reluctant to lend them money for home improvements, while others say sales can be hampered by the buyers’ concern about the stability of the cliffs.

“During big storms, you sometimes go to bed feeling a bit uneasy,” said Gonsett’s wife, Judy. “There are the sleepless night, there are the times when we are real worried about it.”

And, invariably, there are the battles with City Hall.

Although bluff-top homeowners in Encinitas lost Round One when the City Council approved tighter interim building controls last month, the issue of seawalls and construction guidelines will likely be argued all over again next year when the council adopts a new General Plan. A similar tussle could take place in Solana Beach in 1988.

Opinions Divided

Already, opinions in Encinitas are sharply divided. Councilwoman Marjorie Gaines, for example, favors leaving the shoreline as uncluttered by seawalls as possible.

“I think we’d be better off if we set the houses back and let the bluff do what it will,” Gaines said. “The aesthetics of the bluff are a lot nicer without a lot of structures on them.”

Such sentiments irk homeowners like Harlow and Gonsett.

“There are so many people who say, well, you bought on the bluff, you should realize it’s a dangerous place and let it fall,” Harlow said. “I can’t buy that argument. We recognize that some of the seawalls that have been built are unattractive, but we think we can come up with something that will be acceptable to the ecologists.”

Gonsett, meanwhile, has a request in with the Coastal Commission to build a seawall. But the plea has, so far, fallen on deaf ears. The situation has Gonsett worried--his home was built in the 1940s, precariously close to the cliff edge.

“The alternative to building a seawall is to demolish the house and build back further from the bluff at what is certainly a greater expense,” said Gonsett, an electrical engineer. “Even then, you’ll face the problem of an eroding bluff again some day, so why not address it now?”

Others, however, argue that better long-term solutions are available. Gaines, for one, favors a seemingly quixotic proposal that, at first glance, seems to have nothing to do with the beachfront.

Under the plan, a trench would be dug for the Santa Fe train tracks running near the shoreline east of the bluffs through the cities of Encinitas and Solana Beach. Aside from reducing the noise and visual impairment of the railroad, the trench would intercept and drain off much of the groundwater that flows toward the bluffs, severely weakening them. Moreover, any sand that is excavated could be dumped on the beach.

Such a project, however, would be extremely costly and difficult. A more tangible proposal, some community leaders say, would be to import river-bottom sand to buttress the beaches. Indeed, a reinforced beach may be the only plan that would get near-unanimous support, coastal experts say.

“The desired option for shoreline protection is a wide, sandy beach,” said Reinhard Flick, an oceanographer with the California Department of Boating and Waterways. “That’s one thing everyone can agree on.”