Step-by-Step Approach to Beach Repair

Just as they wrought havoc up and down the coast, wicked winter storms battered Little Corona del Mar Beach, turning to rubble a concrete walkway that once gave access to the shore.

But that hasn’t deterred some visitors eager to check out the ocean vista and the teeming tide pools below.

“Oh, there’s a purple one,” said 8-year-old Lindsay West, examining a sea urchin lurking in a crystal backwater among the rocks. She visited Little Corona recently with her family from Camp Lejeune, N.C., and they’re glad Newport Beach plans to restore easy access by repairing the steps that led from the bluffs off Poppy Avenue down to the beach.

“It’s a beautiful part of the coastline,” said Lindsay’s aunt, Stacy Harlan, 37, of Irvine. She said the children had visited Sea World the day before, but now wanted to see non-captive starfish, hermit crabs, anemones and sea snails.

“Here it’s definitely au naturel,” Harlan said, as her year-old son Dakota clambered on the rocks at her feet.

Tiny footprints are common at Little Corona--about 300 schoolchildren a day visit the tide pools while on field trips, said Tony Melum, Newport Beach’s deputy chief of marine environmental management. That’s one reason the city is eager to fix the steps that now abruptly end halfway down the hill.

“It’s one of the most visited and pristine tide pool areas in Southern California,” Melum said. “If we didn’t make it safe, people would still go down there.”

For temporary access, the city has fenced off an asphalt strip that parallels the walkway. A monthlong project to stabilize the path is scheduled to start July 1. The city hopes to offset the $50,000 cost with federal or state disaster-relief money.

More complete repairs to the steps and walkway will come in the fall, when the city begins a major project to restore the storm-damaged mouth of Buck Gully.

Melum said there’s some concern that, with the high number of visitors, the cove will be “loved to death.” But he said most people heed the signs warning that the area is a marine preserve, and subject to regulations.

“Ninety-nine percent of the people, once you explain the situation to them, they say, ‘OK. I understand,’ ” Melum said. “Every group that comes down there gets more and more sensitized that they have to be careful.”