Surfers Stage a ‘Paddle Out’ Protest Over Seawall Plan in Ventura

Shelley Merrick, an avid surfer for more than 38 years, yanked on her wet suit and scowled at the bulldozer out on the jetty off Greenock Lane in Ventura.

“They’re putting an unnatural thing out there,” Merrick said. “You have to be very careful what you put in the ocean.”

On Friday, Merrick and about a dozen surfers paddled out into the water to protest the city’s planned construction of a 100-foot groin extension that surfers say will destroy a prime surfing spot just up the coast from Marina Park.

Surfers said the extension, to be built 400 feet out to sea and will ultimately resemble a lopsided ‘t’, is the latest assault on the coastline by misguided public officials. They said the rock groin will not halt beach erosion as proposed, but instead simply shift the problem to another location down the beach.

City officials hovered by anxiously as surfers began gathering at Marina Park on Friday afternoon to hold a “paddle out” protest at the jetty, which officials believe will help prevent beach erosion.

“This should help us build back the beach,” said Mark Watkins, a senior construction engineer. “As long as they just paddle around, it should be fine.”

Merrick said surfers knew they could not change city officials’ minds or stop the project, but wanted to stage a public protest to inform residents about the issue.

The event, which was sponsored by the local chapter of the Surfrider Foundation, was a “protest to build public awareness of the coastline and to remind people not to sit back idly while it’s destroyed bit by bit,” said Merrick, who works for Patagonia, one of Ventura’s most environmentally conscious companies.

While construction crews operated the bulldozer and excavator on the groin, the surfers bobbed in the water until a good wave came along. The paddle-out protest soon dissolved into a surfing session, with the demonstrators taking advantage of a west swell from this week’s storms.

Studies from city-hired consultants show the 100-foot extension would help stabilize the beach and will not have a significant environmental impact on the area, Watkins said.

But surfers say there is no evidence that the jetty will halt beach erosion, and they are also upset about the disruption of a well-known surfing spot.

“This is one place that breaks year round,” said Larry Manson, a Ventura College history instructor who has surfed for 32 years. “People come here when there aren’t breaks any place else.”

The Surfrider Foundation, a group of ecologically minded surfers, has objected to the project from the beginning. They were unsuccessful in halting the project, but got city officials to agree to monitor the effects of sand movements around the groin, said Everett Millais, city community development director.

City officials say the extended groin will halt some sand from collecting in the mouth of nearby Ventura Harbor.

“We want the sand to stay on the beaches,” Watkins said. “This has been a problem for a long time.”

The construction of the extension, which began this week, is scheduled to be finished in mid-March, said Marquita Ellias, a city engineer. If the crews are not finished by mid-March, however, the project will be halted and finished in September.

“We gotta be out of there because the grunion will be running then,” Ellias said. “They don’t want to disturb the grunion.”

Last year, Surfriders Foundation lost a similar battle with Ventura Harbor officials over a 650-foot groin that was constructed on the beach south of the harbor. Surfers said the rock seawall would create beach erosion and destroy a top surfing area.

“In the last 20 years, there has been a pattern of a loss of surf spots in California,” Manson mourned. “What we see is a tremendous armoring of the California coast. We shouldn’t interfere with natural processes; we can’t manage the ocean.”