A crack at the community’s clubhouse parking lot has gotten so large, a foot can fit inside the split concrete.
Four homes in the Cyprus Shores community, considered some of the priciest coastal property in south Orange County, and a vacant lot also have growing cracks, made worse when massive waves last week slammed onto the narrow shoreline below.
The waves also caused movement along the ocean-front railroad track running between the beach and bluff-top homes. The need for emergency stabilization prompted the sudden halt to train traffic, leaving commuters to find alternative transportation until likely Oct. 3.
Residents first noticed minor cracking last year at the clubhouse, used by all in the small community, and hired a geotechnical engineer to monitor movement, said Jeffrey Beaumont, an attorney representing the Cyprus Shores Community Association.
But then, on Sept. 10, it was noticed the cracking had become more extensive, and last week it worsened further when the mega swell hit, he said.
Over the weekend, a freight train filled with boulders chugged down to the area, dumping the big rocks, called riprap, onto the beach along the tracks as an emergency bandage to prevent the slope from slipping further into the ocean.
It’s a seaside saga happening more frequently in recent years – a growing problem as sand shrinks and leaves less buffer between the ocean and infrastructure such as the coastal train track, or even people’s homes.
A coastal conundrum
Without regular sand replenishment to provide a buffer to hold the ocean back, damage to homes and infrastructure will become a more common occurrence, said Brett Sanders, professor of civil and environmental engineering at UC Irvine.
Last week’s storm was a typical, big southern hemisphere swell, which can happen several times each summer. And the tides weren’t exceptionally high, not like the king tides that happen in winter months.
“Once the beaches are gone, we are quickly seeing damaging impacts to infrastructure. As soon as the beaches are gone, we lose railroad service, we see displacement of land, concrete gets cracked,” Sanders said. “Our beaches are incredibly important for providing protection for infrastructure and natural resources.”
Until there is a beach to “guard that part of the coast, Sanders said problems will continue. “The riprap itself is not sufficient to offer protection to the railroad and avoid displacement of the land on the other side of the railroad.”
This isn’t the only area to experience significant impacts from the lack of sand in recent years. In Capistrano Beach, officials are working with the California Coastal Commission to figure out the best way to replace a shoreline that’s been chomped away in recent years, including the loss of amenities such as basketball courts and fire rings.
The dirt pathway into San Onofre State Beach, a popular surfing area, and the nearby San Onofre Generating Station has needed similar infusions of riprap as sand has eroded. Homes in areas like Capistrano Beach and Laguna Beach have had to be similarly fortified.
RELATED: Video: Big waves, high tides batter beaches and homes in Orange County
Sandy beaches are an inherent part of the Orange County and Southern California lifestyle, often taken for granted that they will always be there, Sanders said.
“We’ve transitioned from beach loss to major erosion impacts,” he said.
But rock revetments and sea walls, while they may protect homes and infrastructure as an emergency measure, have their downside, Sanders said.
When the ocean pounds onto the rocks, sediment is moved by the rushing water and the rocks will want to settle into a new position, he said. “You see adjustment of the slope in response to the washing of that rock.”
Hard armoring, as the lines of boulders and sea walls are called, can make sand erosion worse.
When waves crash onto a solid object, they will dig down into the sediment more than they would on a natural beach, pulling the sand further offshore, he said. The “feedback mechanism” creates deeper water, making for even more energy in the waves reaching the rocks.
“So even a small amount of impact onto rocks leads to erosion, which leads to deeper water, which then creates even bigger waves and then leads to more erosion,” he said.
The solution? More sand, he said.
“It’s really critical we maintain a certain amount of sand on our beaches,” Sanders said. “They need a healthy amount of sand in front of those revetments to dissipate that energy before it even reaches the rocks.”
While sea-level rise is often seen as the reason for the current sand erosion problem, it’s more complex, he said.
Drought conditions prevent sediment from pouring in from river mouths and streams, which have also been concreted over, which blocks sand from naturally eroding into shorelines.
Locally, development around the Dana Point Harbor blocks delivery of sand from cliffs above, also part of the equation, he said.
“The sand is just too low to protect us from those waves coming in from the south,” he said. “It’s an indicator of a consequence of our failure to maintain our beaches and manage our sediment supplies around the coast. It should serve as a wake up call to the region to take sediment supplies really seriously and demand more.”
Sand of utmost importance
Beaumont, the attorney for the Cyprus Shores Community Association, said various stakeholders have been meeting, including the city, which has a sewer pump station nearby.
He said cracks around the community became larger last week, including the one in the parking lot into which he can now fit his foot. Others were visible on the outside of homes, the vacant lot has started to sink down and there’s “evidence of structural cracking in adjacent lots,” he said.
None of the homes have been red tagged, he said.
City officials did not respond to requests for information about the damage to homes.
“Those properties are all impacted by this, in addition to the lower adjacent railroad,” Beaumont said. “We’ve been working to try and get everyone together to work hard to get this scope of repair completed so we can get before the Coastal Commission.”
“What we’re looking to do is install caissons (a watertight retaining structure) to stabilize the movements,” Beaumont said.
He commended Metrolink, the Orange County Transportation Authority and the Army Corps of Engineers for responding quickly to bring truckloads of riprap to the ocean side of the tracks to help stop the movement.
Emergency measures, such as the homeowners installing caissons to secure the slope, need Coastal Commission permit approval, he said. Insurance does not cover landslides, so the responsibility for the cost will likely be a combination of homeowners, the HOA and possibly agencies involved, though those discussions are ongoing, he said.
“We hope this will be repaired and stabilized,” Beaumont said. “But the restoration of the beach sand will be ultimately of the utmost importance.”
Projects to add much-needed sand to two Orange County beaches have been included in a federal appropriations request for 2022.
Funding for the Surfside-Sunset and Newport Beach Nourishment Project (which would replenish the 12 miles from Huntington Beach to Newport) and the San Clemente Shoreline Project made it past the House of Representatives a few months ago, but still needs approval from the Senate.
Both projects have been stalled for years, awaiting government funding to help create a beach buffer that would protect roads, home and infrastructure from ocean flooding, as well as keep beaches – one of the region’s major tourism draws – from disappearing.
The San Clemente project, which started in 1999, would add 251,000 cubic yards of sand from Linda Lane beach to T-Street beach, south of the pier.
The planning process to get sand replenished is long, taking years, even decades, for funding to be put in place. But in an emergency situation like last week, rocks can be dumped in within days, quickly altering the coast, Sanders said.
“Once a wave event comes along, someone has a permit to quickly change our coastline from a beach to a beach with a lot of rock,” he said. “That’s what’s quickly going to happen in absence of a regional plan to manage the coast.
“We need political leaders who can help the cities in this region get our fair share of the resources available from the federal government for shoreline stabilization.”
Source: Orange County Register
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