Swell Idea? : Environmental, Corporate Groups Aim to Restore Waves to El Segundo Beach With World’s 1st Artificial Surfing Reef

Once, when all surfboards were long boards and neon neoprene was not even a fever-induced dream, there were more waves than surfers and few man-made obstacles to alter their course or form.

Today, Southern California surfers fairly wait in line to catch a respectable wave. And once-mighty surf sloshes in meekly at several beaches, its energy already spent against jetties or piers or pipelines.

In a move not without irony, a coalition of surfing, environmental and corporate groups has released plans for the world’s first artificial surfing reef--hoping to restore waves at an El Segundo beach that were ironed almost flat when Chevron installed another artificial structure, a jetty, in the mid-1980s.

“Ridable waves are a natural resource that need to be considered when structures are put into the ocean,” said Michelle Kramer of the Surfrider Foundation, an environmental group that is the driving force behind the plan.

A Chevron-funded experiment in low-budget, environmentally safe surfing enhancement, the plan calls for filling 30 gargantuan polyester bags with sand and dropping them from a barge into 15 feet of water, 300 feet off Dockweiler State Beach. The oil giant agreed to pay $300,000 to study and build the wall as part of an agreement over the jetty.

Shaped, coincidentally, like a giant chevron, with the apex pointing out to sea, the reef will not create waves, but rather cause existing waves to break at a given place.

When the bottom of a wave runs into the 8-foot-high, 9,000-ton wall, it should slow down, just as a wave does when it meets the sand as it approaches a beach, designers say. The top of the wave, however, will continue forward at the same speed until it gets so far ahead of the bottom that it falls over, or “breaks.”

If all goes according to plan, surfers could be riding sizable swells almost overnight, proponents say--emphasis on the words “if” and “could.”

“This is completely experimental,” Kramer said.

Artificial reefs have been installed in seas all over the world, of materials ranging from concrete to ship hulls, to improve habitat for sea life or protect against coastal erosion, said designer David Skelly, of Skelly Engineering in Encinitas. Sandbags similar to the behemoths planned for this project have been used to protect oil derricks in the cold waters off Alaska and to prevent erosion in the Mississippi River.

But no one has built an artificial reef specifically for surfers, according to the California Coastal Commission.

A concrete or rock reef almost certainly would work more efficiently than a long line of malleable, shiftable sandbags, coastal engineers agree, and would provide a more predictable outcome. But a permanent reef also would cost several times the $300,000 Chevron has pledged and might never make it through what is certain to be an extensive permitting process.

A host of government agencies, from the Coastal Commission to the Los Angeles County Department of Recreation and Parks, are expected to review the novel proposal.

“We like the idea, “ said Coastal Commission engineer Lesley Ewing. “We would love to be able to say surfing has been enhanced by this project. But we want to make sure it gets a full and thorough review.”

The reef, which could be in place by late 1997, will be as much a way to study the long-term feasibility of artificially induced surf as a new summer hot spot.

Proponents have agreed to monitor how the reef affects marine life, erosion and the transfer of sediments along the coastline. The Santa Monica Bay is somewhat compartmentalized by the numerous jetties and other structures that ring it, Skelly said, and he doubts that the reef would have a serious impact on other beaches.

If something does go haywire, the reef can be dismantled with remarkable ease.

In a sport so closely tied to the forces of nature, surfers concede, there is a philosophical dilemma in installing one artificial structure to address the damage of another. But in the real world, they say, such reefs may prove valuable in keeping surfing from being forced out by other interests.

“That’s going to be a benign structure from an environmental point of view,” said Steve Hawk, editor of Surfer magazine and a 22-year veteran of the sport. “I don’t think any surfer would want to create a wave that would harm the ocean in any way.”

Several environmental groups have given the plan preliminary approval.

“It would change the hydrology somewhat, but it might also . . . enhance various species,” said Terry Tamminen of Baykeeper in Marina del Rey. “It will help restore some habitat that has been harmed previously. When you’re trying to right a wrong with another Band-Aid,” he added, “you’re never going to know until you try it.”

The tussle over quality surf at Dockweiler goes back more than a decade.

When the Coastal Commission granted the oil giant permission to build the 127-yard jetty--to protect pipes that link the company’s El Segundo refinery with tankers offshore--the commission said Chevron would be held responsible if surfing conditions were harmed.

Surfers soon began complaining of smaller waves that lacked the precious, smooth “curl,” that surfing at the site wasn’t like it was in the old days. A five-year Surfrider study completed in 1989 indicated they were right: The quality of the waves had been degraded because the jetty had changed the size and shape of naturally occurring sandbars.

Initially, Chevron offered $100,000 to pinpoint exceptional surfing spots in Southern California and study how those beaches might be endangered or improved. South Bay surfers said such a study was a swell idea, but did nothing to return their waves. The Coastal Commission concurred, and the current proposal eventually was hammered out, to the delight of surfers.

“For the first time, a government entity has acknowledged that ridable ocean waves are a resource to be protected,” Hawk said. “For surfers, that’s like Brown vs. the Board of Education [or] the Miranda case. It’s huge.”

Bon Griego, 24, who has been surfing South Bay beaches since he was 8, had just one problem with the reef: its location.

“Bro,” he said, “they should put it in front of my house.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Getting a Break

The world’s first artificial surf break, to be made of giant polyester sandbags, is planned for Dockweiler State Beach.

1. Thirty polyester bags will be dropped from a barge into a V formation, with the apex of the V pointing out to sea, about 300 feet from shore.

2. Each bag will contain 300 tons of sand. The bags will be stacked 8 to 10 feet high on a giant sheet of polyester to keep them from shifting or sinking into the sand.

3. When a wave hits the wall, the bottom of the wave will slow down, but the top will continue at the same speed until it is so far ahead of the bottom that it falls, or “breaks.”

Side view:

* THe top of the reef will be at least two feet below water at low tide.

* At its widest point, the reef will span 200 feet.

Source: Skelly Enginerng of Encinitas