Letters to the Editor: Santa Monica project shows a better way for California to handle beach erosion

To the editor: The article on California’s struggle to protect homes and infrastructure from storms and rising seas without sacrificing its beaches points to a larger problem: We keep treating coastal erosion and flooding as emergencies to clean up after rather than threats to prepare for (“California’s plan to save coastal homes from El Niño could end up killing beaches,” Sept. 28).

As a Santa Monica native and lifelong surfer whose father spent 30 years as a lifeguard along this stretch of coast, I’ve watched these beaches change for decades.

For years, our reflex has been familiar. A storm tears into the beach, bulldozers arrive, sand gets pushed back into place, and we wait for the next storm. Elsewhere, communities turn to riprap, seawalls and jetties — structures that may protect one stretch of coast while narrowing beaches nearby or pushing erosion downshore. With another potentially powerful El Niño looming, that cycle looks less like resilience and more like denial.

Greater Los Angeles residents can see a different approach taking shape at Santa Monica Beach.

Just south of the pier, the city of Santa Monica, the Bay Foundation and UCLA are expanding a dune restoration project. Phase 3 will extend restored habitat across more than 30 acres toward Venice. Native vegetation traps sand and allows dunes to build naturally, creating a buffer before the waves arrive instead of sending in heavy equipment afterward.

The stakes are real. Recent storm surf stripped enough sand near the pier to force cancellation of the inaugural Ocean Way music festival.

We are not going to bulldoze, armor or jetty our way out of sea-level rise. Santa Monica is showing another path: helping beaches adapt by working with Mother Nature instead of repeatedly trying to overpower her.

Matthew King, Santa Monica

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To the editor: Lately, much has been written and filmed about the California coast being under attack. It faces sea-level rise caused by global warming, ocean waves driven by El Niño-fueled storms, remotely generated Kelvin waves, higher-than-normal king tides and the other events du jour. All of these phenomena are real. But the forces shaping our coast are playing out on a much larger stage.

Coastal erosion is not unusual. It is a forever fact of nature.

Over geologic time, natural forces have continuously reshaped the surface of the Earth. Redrawing coastal maps is an ancient profession because the evolution of our coasts is continuous.

Why? Because gravity is relentless. It drives water and sediment downhill and helps shape the landscapes through which they move. Coastlines migrate. Cliffs and bluffs retreat. Beaches are built, eroded and rebuilt. Today’s beaches, bluffs, hillsides, canyons and floodplains are temporary features of a constantly changing planet.

We ignore this reality when we build too close to the ocean, in a canyon, below an unstable hillside or on a floodplain. These are not necessarily dangerous places at every moment — but they are places where natural forces are already at work. Building there does not stop those forces; it simply puts people and property in their path.

History teaches us that resisting every change in the coastline is futile. The lesson is simpler: We should take the long view when deciding where and how to build. Understand the landscape. Plan for change. Understand that gravity will always win.

Simply put: Don’t build your castles in the sand.

Bill Patzert, Sierra Madre