Latest Chapter in the Broad Beach Saga of
Shifting Sand
• Nature Adds Twist to Clash Between
Homeowners, Each Other and the State
It may be global warming, or the lingering
effects of a disastrous attempt to build an illegal
protective berm three years ago. Or it just may be the natural
ebb and flow of nature.
But whatever the cause, Broad Beach is no
longer broad, and for the first time in 10 years, multimillion
dollar houses on Malibu’s western end are in
jeopardy of washing away, a city official said.
Sandbags have been stacked by some
residents at their homes, but this may be worsening the serious
sand erosion in front of neighboring houses. And in at least
one case, sand was scooped out from the dune in front of one
house to fill sandbags next door.
“This is the worst I’ve ever
seen, and we’ve been here since 1965,” said one
beach resident who declined attribution.
Piles of sandbags and other stopgap
measures have been placed in front of some beachfront mansions,
particularly at the western end of the beach, where about 30
homes have in some cases lost nearly all of the natural sand
dune that had kept waves away for decades.
“Last week we became aware that there
is sandbagging going on out there on a massive scale,”
said City of Malibu permits coordinator Gail Sumpter.
High tides and big waves on Monday
advanced to within a dozen feet of some houses, where the
last homes to be swept out to sea were the pair that were lost
during the winter storms in the 1997-98 El Niño. Most of
the threatened mansions were built after the 1978 brushfire
burned numerous summer cottages and small homes at the west end
of Broad Beach, although the dunes that have just
disappeared are visible in pictures taken in the area in the
1940s.
A heavy south swell early this week drove
waves into the dune, which had collapsed, creating vertical
cliffs in some cases above six feet tall. At high tide Tuesday
afternoon, advancing waves smacked into assorted plastic
linings, sandbags and sand cliffs, leaving no room for
beachgoers’ blankets.
Waves were also ricocheting off some
fortified lots, creating channels in the wet sand that appeared
to increase erosion at neighboring properties. Some new sandbag
revetments appeared to have caused older sandbag piles to
collapse.
City officials were on the beach last week,
warning residents and workers that emergency coastal
development permits must be obtained before wave-control or
erosion-prevention devices can be installed. Only dire
emergency property protection can be done without a coastal
permit, and even then emergency permits must be obtained
immediately after the installation, said Sumpter.
Permits will not be granted unless an
engineer signs off that the project will not harm the public
beach or private adjoining land, Sumpter said.
“Our coastal engineer tells us she is
concerned that some workers were removing sand in a way she
thought was not helping the overall situation,” she said.
“But if someone is doing something
that is saving their house right at that minute, I can’t
tell them to stop,” Sumpter said. Protecting oceanfront
land or saving beach dunes does not count, she said.
“I’m not going to tell somebody
to stop work designed to protect their houses from the
immediate danger of falling into the ocean,” Sumpter
said.
In some cases, residents say they think
their neighbors are stealing sand to fill illegal sandbags. On
Sunday, a work crew near the public access path at 31300 Broad
Beach Road was observed digging up a property owner’s
sand dune to fill about 500 sandbags, which were then being
stacked in front of a neighboring house.
“When I asked these guys what they
were doing, they just ran off down the beach,” said the
concerned homeowner. “They knew they were not supposed to
do that.”
That man, who has lived in the same Broad
Beach home for 28 years, now has a large hole in the sand dune
that formerly protected his property. “I called the
sheriff, and a deputy said to call the city.”
California Coastal Commission officials
have told Malibu that they will be handling Coastal Act
violations in the area, because the law gives the state
enforcement responsibility if a violation occurs seaward
of the mean high tide line. The city is handling violations
above the high tide line, on private property.
“If structures are threatened,
Malibu’s Local Coastal Plan does allow for the
armorization of beaches,” said Pat Veesart, the
enforcement officer at the CCC’s Ventura office.
“But not their yards, and not their playhouses.”
Like others, Veesart is mystified why
the Pacific is munching into the sand dunes during the calm
summer wave action, instead of during winter storms.
“The sand should be accreting this time of year, not
washing away,” he said.
The Coastal Commission has heard
allegations that illegal modifications at Lechusa Point,
including the piling of sand into a sea cave, have prevented
sand from washing through the cave and down the beach to
replenish sand that washes from Broad Beach, past
Trancas Beach, to Zuma Beach. The latter two beaches
are at their normal widths this summer, lifeguards said.
“There’s no proof of that, of
course, but everyone on the beach seems to have their own
opinion about what is going on,” Veesart said.
The sea cave has been impassable for
several months, although people used to be able to crouch
through it at low tide. It sits in front of the concrete
mansion owned by Sam Zell, the new owner of the Los Angeles
Times, whose home is not threatened by the sand shortage.
Complicating the situation is the fact that
the mean high tide line is not a permanent survey mark. The
curved line between homes and the State of California’s
beach moves as sand migrates. That means the state could
now claim ownership of the newly eroded areas, letting nature
accomplish what decades of beach access litigation could
not.
And looming in the background is
2005’s sand berm fiasco, when the Trancas Property
Owners Association hired bulldozers to build a berm along Broad
Beach without city or state environmental studies or building
permits.
Media reports gleefully pointed out that
the net effect was that a private homeowners group had scooped
publicly owned sand into a berm, extending their private
property out to sea and destroying the beach. The association
had to flatten the berm, but some beach access advocates say
the ebb and flow of tides there has never been the same.
No evidence, however, has been presented as
the matter heads to possible litigation. The Coastal Commission
has been in negotiations with the TPHA and residents over fines
that could total more than $400,000.
Did the illegal berm create erosion three
years later? “I’m not qualified to
comment on that,” CCC’s Veesart said.
“But several members of the public have told me that they
feel that is the cause.”
The TPHA has hired a marine engineer to
come up with an emergency beach stabilization plan. The
group’s officers could not be reached early this week.
Beachgoers at midafternoon Monday had no
place to put their towels, as no dry sand could be found along
Broad Beach.
One pair of tourists sat eating their lunch
in one of the public accessways, glumly looking at waves
spraying vertically in the air as they smashed into sandbags on
either side of what has become a public access gully.
“We have to leave because there
is no place for our kids to play in the sand,” said
Malibu native Rulen Jorgenson, now a Utah resident.
“I’ve been coming here all my life, and I’ve
never seen it anywhere near this bad.”
“It just looks like hell, with
sandbags everywhere,” he said as he loaded beach toys
into his car.
CAPTION Photo credit, MSN Photos/Hans Laetz
SANDBAGGED—The fortress of sandbags
on the right appears to be all that’s left of what once
was a neighbor’s protective sand dune at Broad Beach. A
work crew that reportedly was filling sandbags on Sunday with
sand in front of the house next door ran off when the homeowner
complained. The Pacific is shifting inland and threatening
houses on the west end of Broad Beach, leaving many ocean
experts stumped.
