Long-Delayed ‘Surfing Reef’ Secures Funding

When it comes to riding killer waves, David Skelly totally rips. It’s only when he surfs the paper swells of bureaucracy that he gets full-on thrashed.

Skelly, an Encinitas marine engineer, has designed what is expected to be the nation’s first artificial surf reef: a 2,000-ton pile of sandbags to be submerged off the shores of El Segundo, near Los Angeles International Airport.

The proposed reef is intended to reverse the wave-flattening effects of a 17-year-old jetty there and transform Dockweiler State Beach into a surfing mecca, a place where overjoyed wave riders won’t even notice the blast of jets overhead or the smell of the bordering Hyperion sewage plant.

Trouble is, members of the San Clemente-based Surfrider Foundation, which conceived the idea and hired Skelly for the job, figured the warehouse-sized reef would be finished four years ago. Instead, they’ve found themselves caught in a protracted funding and environmental riptide.

“They’ve been talking about that reef for years,” surfer Joey Bellissimo said as he sat by his board on nearby Manhattan Beach recently. “Everybody’s pretty skeptical about it ever being built.”

The holdup involves skyrocketing sand prices, the breeding cycles of fish and long-delayed funding from a major oil company, via the state government’s California Coastal Conservancy, for the $300,000 project. The Surfrider Foundation finally received the bulk of that money last week as recompense for the oil company’s jetty. But the money arrived too late for work to begin any time before this fall.

“There’s something very wrong here,” said Skelly. “It’s like they’ve done everything they can to make this more difficult than it is.”

Since reef plans were drawn up six years ago, the price of construction sand has tripled. As a result, the reef’s overall tonnage was cut in half from 4,000 just to meet the budget, a development that will mean shorter wave rides for surfers. The reef, which will be shaped like a V, will affect only that area of the surf between it and the beach, about 300 feet away. The structure will stand 7 feet off the ocean floor and each arm of the V will extend 150 feet.

Reef builders blame funding delays on Chevron Corp., which was ordered to pay for the reef because it built the surf-destroying jetty. They also complain about the state coastal agency, which held the oil money in a trust account. Chevron and the state suggest that Surfrider’s mishandling of paperwork caused those delays.

Now environmental authorities have banned all reef construction until Sept. 1 to avoid endangering grunion in their breeding season or migrating gray whales and least terns.

Matters are complicated further by the fact that at least one of the reef’s necessary work permits will expire by the time construction can begin, and representatives must reapply to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Officials of the nonprofit Surfrider organization insist that construction finally will start in the fall, and say the delays only underscore the necessity of preserving surfable waters along California’s coast.

“This speaks volumes about how much better we need to take care of this resource,” said Surfrider Executive Director Christopher Evans. “We just can’t wreck waves and expect to slap them up again without encountering this sort of bureaucracy and delay.”

The foundation will attempt to raise $50,000 or more to increase the reef to its originally intended size. Such a boost in size would increase both the height and life span of surfable wave peaks. Reef builders also are asking for donations of clean sand to beef up the reef.

Dockweiler was once considered a primo surf location. Things changed in the 1980s when Chevron built a rock jetty to protect the pipeline that connects ocean tankers to its El Segundo refinery. Today, surfable waves are a rare occurrence there and surfers instead flock to such spots as Manhattan Beach to the south.

Surfers and conservationists complained that the jetty destroyed the surf, and after years of legal battles and negotiations, state coastal authorities agreed. Chevron was ordered in 1993 to pay $300,000 for the study and construction of a surf reef. After a previous $50,000 payment for planning, Chevron transferred the rest of the money to the Coastal Conservancy just three months ago.

Chevron said its payment had to wait until Surfrider proved that it had made arrangements with a contractor. Surfrider insists that there was no such requirement.

At the Coastal Conservancy, a spokeswoman said Surfrider had not sent the necessary paperwork for the transfer until mid-February, when the transfer of the money began. Surfrider officials deny that, and insist that they long ago had followed the state’s instructions for receiving the money. They say that repeated calls by a Times reporter to the coastal agency over the past few weeks probably helped release the funds.

An artificial reef like the one planned for Dockweiler does not create waves, but rather causes existing waves to break at a given place; in this case, they will break farther from shore so they can be ridden. The reef, to be named after the late Surfrider member Tom Pratte, will be underwater just south of where Imperial Highway meets the beach.

The reef will consist of 120 to 150 polyester bags, each filled with 18 tons of sand. The bags, which are black and resemble pillows the size of a dump truck bed, will be lowered into 10 feet of water by a crane and then anchored with straps to the sea floor and each other. Construction will take only two or three days, Skelly says, though the work will be scheduled over a two-week period to allow for poor weather.

The first artificial reef in the world was built in Australia last year, and more are planned Down Under. Although popular among surfers, the concept of artificial surf reefs has its critics. Some say they doubt that a man-made reef can withstand constant abuse from the sea and that permitting artificial structures in the surf zone sets a disturbing precedent.

In the case of the El Segundo reef, Surfrider officials point out that the structure is experimental and can be removed. Surfrider must monitor the effects of the reef on the surf and the beach.

If it’s any consolation to folks at Surfrider, a newer, rival plan to build the country’s first artificial surf reef in Ventura County is stumbling along as well. Earlier this month, the Quantum Reef Foundation learned that it had been turned down for $1 million in state construction grants.

Ventura County’s proposed reef, close to Mussel Shoals, would be made of plastic piping instead of sand. Gary Ross, vice president of Quantum Reef Foundation, says now that he may have been a little naive about the challenges the organization faced.

Now, he sometimes thinks of the advice he was given early on by Kimo Walker, a pioneer in the study of surf reefs. “He told me that if I really wanted to do this, I’d have to do it someplace in the Third World,” Ross said, referring to places with fewer restrictions. “Otherwise, I was climbing a mountain that’s too tall.”

Despite such pessimism, Los Angeles area surfers say they would welcome a surf reef at Dockweiler even if they doubt that it will ever be built.

“There’s always a use for waves,” said Bruce Gliniors as he loaded his board into his pickup after a morning of surfing at Manhattan Beach. “If there’s going to be waves, there are plenty of surfers in Southern California who aren’t going to let them go unused.”