A recent article in the UT San Diego titled Fighting to Fend off the Sea details the current battle in Solana Beach and Encinitas over sea walls. Bluff-top homeowners have been allowed to protect their precariously located homes by constructing sea walls. While private property owners do pay for sea walls out of their own pockets, many of the seawalls in Solana Beach are built on public property, so are in sense a private taking of public lands. In addition to this taking of public land, as Christopher Pederson, deputy chief counsel for the Coastal Commission states “Sea walls can cause narrowing and loss of sandy beaches, habitat impacts, visual impacts...There’s a definite interest in reducing the need for sea walls in the future.” Surfrider attorney Angela Howe added in recent written comments submitted to the California Coastal Commission “With increasing armoring of the coast, Californians will experience reduced access to these treasured coastal resources and the loss of the sandy beach.”
Read the full article here.
