Barrier Grief

For decades, Della Chesnut has driven out of her way to enjoy the ever-changing sand, sky and shore at Hueneme Beach Park.

So the 44-year Port Hueneme resident was stunned last month when, instead of waves, she encountered a 3-foot-high wall of concrete.

“It made me sick to my stomach,” she said.

Dozens of other city residents say the wall--being built to keep blowing sand on the beach and off sidewalks--offends them as well. They are circulating a petition to get the city to stop construction of the divide, which sits along Surfside Drive at the edge of the beach.

Petitioners want the city to remove the 1,300-foot-long wall or, at a minimum, agree to significantly reduce its height.

More than 200 people have signed the petition, which community activist Dorothy Blake plans to present at the Oct. 4 City Council meeting.

“The public is really quite concerned,” said Blake, a vice president on the homeowners board at the Surfside 1 condominium complex. “You can see only the top half of the islands now.”

At last week’s council meeting, so many people complained about the wall that the council agreed to review the situation.

Mayor Murray Rosenbluth wants city staffers to make sure that a 3-foot-wall is the best balance between keeping the sand back and the loss of view that results. He asked staffers to provide information about safety, graffiti, sand buildup and access for emergency vehicles.

“What I’m asking for is in-depth, not a whitewash job,” Rosenbluth said.

The results of the analysis are expected in a month or two.

Residents along the ground floors of the Surfside 1 condominiums and the Anacapa Homes on Surfside Drive used to be able to see the wide sandy beach and watch the surf crash against the shore. Although they can still see the ocean, the wall blocks the view of the beach and shoreline.

“It looks more like a lake,” said Alexa Dresbach, a two-year resident of Surfside 1. “I think it’s a crime against nature itself.”

Dresbach used to let her 10-year-old son roam the beach within certain boundaries as she kept an eye on him from her home.

“Now I can’t see him over that wall,” she said.

Anacapa Homes resident Lt. Cmdr. Anthony Potts, who runs an eye clinic at the nearby naval base, says he has documented graffiti sprayed onto the new wall. Potts, who took his complaints to the council last week, has volunteered to donate $5,000 toward the removal of the wall.

“It’s a big, God-given, natural resource that they’ve just destroyed,” he said. “The whole feel of the beach is changed.”

The wall is part of a long-planned city project to improve walkways and sidewalks in the beach area west of Ventura Road. Plans call for an extension of an existing concrete walkway for bikers and pedestrians and the addition of outdoor showers, bike racks, lighting and benches to the area, said Greg Brown, the city’s community development director.

The project will cost $240,650 and is being paid for with city and federal transportation money.

The wall is meant to keep sand from blowing onto the new walkway and onto Surfside Drive. That area of the beach is “subject to significant erosion,” Brown said.

On the east end of the 7,000-foot-long beach, engineers created artificial dunes to stop sand from blowing onto roadways. But the west end of the beach is more unstable and dunes would not work there, Brown said.

The view looks bad to a lot of people because the beach is severely eroded, reducing its visibility from ground level, he said. A dredging project in Channel Islands Harbor will begin Oct. 6 and bring thousands of cubic yards of sand back to the beach.

“Give us two weeks and there’s going to be a beach back,” Brown said. “You’re seeing it at its worst point.”

Once the rehab is complete, some residents should have enhanced views as the beach extends out farther into the ocean, Rosenbluth said. Although some people have enjoyed the view from their vehicles, they might want to get out and walk around, he said.

“I don’t think we want to encourage cruising in automobiles along Surfside Drive,” Rosenbluth said.

Longtime cruiser Della Chesnut has been back just once since she saw the wall up.

“The most wonderful thing Port Hueneme has to offer is the sea, that beach,” she said. “All of us bought our homes here. That’s why you buy in a beach city.”