Coastal Land Protection -- State & National Policy

Because I live at the beach in a large condo project,  I have LOTS of concerns about rising ocean. I live in North Coast Village (NCV), a 550 unit complex on the beach next to the mouth of the San Luis Rey River in Oceanside CA. The ocean has already risen an inch or so, and we can see how much damage it does to our beachfront homes during the winter storms.  As you know, the ocean is expected to continue to rise.  The warmer ocean is contributing to some of the cyclones/hurricanes that typically hit Baja California to move a little further North.  I believe meteorologists predictions that it is only a matter of time until those storms start hitting San Diego.  When we have storms during high tides, the waves wash up to the cottage doors.  If we have a hurricane -- or even the fringe winds from a hurricane, NCV could end up with an expensive disaster on our hands. I believe many other beachfront homeowners will have similar problems.  It is so nice most of the time at the beach, that most people are willing to take chances on those random storms.  The East Coast homes and cities on barrier islands is an even more glaring example.    

I don't agree with the "managed retreat" solution.  Geologists say that 90-95% of the sand on our beach came from upstream during normal river flowing and periodic flooding.  The remainder came from shoreline erosion.  We have dammed up most of the rivers, and we're pumping groundwater (for example upstream on San Luis Rey River) such that almost no river water reaches the ocean. (The mouth of the San Luis Rey River has not opened for over 3 years because of drought combined with enhanced percolation due to groundwater pumping).  Why should the beachfront residents now be "taxed" to pay for all of the sand replenishment by giving up their land?

The managed retreat philosophy is being loudly argued by a small but vocal minority of members of the Surfrider Foundation, and the Sierra Club.  I used to be a member, and supported most of their causes.  No longer because I think they have clearly gone "off the track" on beachfront issues.  Their policy and statements seem to say that beachfront owners are all unfairly wealthier than the general public, and can afford to give up their land to erosion to help the general public.  I believe that by not allowing owners to protect their property, it is the equivalent of Government "illegal taking" (see this document) as determined in the June 2015 US Supreme Court decision: Koontz vs St.John's Water District   If those same advocates lived along a river that flooded, I'm sure they would expect to be permitted to build levees to protect their home.  If they lived in an area of fire danger, they would think it permissible to clear an area of forest near their home to protect from fires. Somehow they think that beachfront owners aren't worthy of the same rights to protect their property. Mortgage lenders and insurance companies must have similar concerns about their rights. 

In 1972, California voters approved Proposition 20 which started the process that created the current California Coastal Commission with the Coastal Act of 1976.  Peter Douglas pushed for Proposition 20, and then led the unmanageable group of politicians who created the Coastal Act.  He then led the Coastal Commission almost until his  death in April 2012.  I had just moved to California in 1972, but I agreed with the main premise of Prop 20 and the Coastal Act:  Waterfront access for all citizens.  Many waterfront owners had gone to great lengths to make the beach in front of their homes inaccessible to everyone but themselves.  The clarion call for the legislation was to open up that access by using eminent domain to purchase rights-of-way to gain access to those "privatized" beaches.  Peter Douglas also slipped into the proposition and Coastal Act some other requirements, such as protection of endangered species, accessibility for "less affluent" citizens, and protection of the "beauty" of the coast.  The Coastal Commission was provided funds for their army of lawyers, but no funds for actually buying access rights.  So the army of lawyers, very creatively, responded by using a form of "extortion" to gain land and beach access.  Any time any beachfront owner wanted to make any change to their property, they needed a permit.  In order to get a permit, the owner had to give up as much land or other rights as the Commission could squeeze out of them.  For example, Murphy and Pruitt, the North Coast Village developers were "treated" to the commission's extortion.  The developers had won their California Supreme Court case confirming that since their construction started prior to passage of Proposition 20, the NCV apartment building was legal. However,a few years later,  when the developer was forced to convert to Co-Op, the Commission made him give up most of his land, agree to lateral access (a boardwalk option), buy land along the railroad tracks, pave it and turn it over to the city for parking lot, and build a large low-income housing project.  Those terms pushed the developers into bankruptcy.  

Now the Commission has resolved most of the beach access issues in the state.  The relatively idle army of lawyers are busy working those "lower level" goals -- environmental protection, endangered species protection, beachfront housing for less affluent people, and protecting the recreational value and beauty of the coastline. They interpret that as preventing riprap sea walls (like ours at NCV which they think is ugly) and, of course, managed retreat.

 

I think the correct policy for all coastal states is to encourage owners --maybe with tax credits -- to build improved walls for protection.  The Federal Governemt, should establish nationwide standards for design and construction and encourage neighbors to connect to each other to provide linkage and protection for everyone else inland.  Waterfront owners will certainly come up with money necessary to protect their property--but the Government bureaucracy needs to step out of the way. 

I believe that NCV eventually will have to build a new, modern seawall -- but maybe can hold off for 10 or 15 years. It is estimated now to cost in the $1.5 million range.

Steve

Pope Francis blames 'human selfishness' for global warming

I admire Pope Francis.  I think he has done more for the world and the Catholic Religion than any of the other Popes in my lifetime.  His latest encyclical on global warming is a major step towards helping everyone in the world.and protecting the future of the world from disaster.  His subtle comment on accepting gays, and  that Catholics don't need to "breed like rabbits" are amazing changes for the Church

Pope Francis blames 'human selfishness' for global warming - BBC News

The Pope is correct in blaming "human selfishness" for global warming.  The natural competition among humans, and human governments drives all of us to be as "productive" as possible.  Productivity means that we can produce more and work less -- that means we would use technology to allow us to do more.  If we had not used that technology over the past century, we would not now be able to feed, clothe and house the existing population population of the world--only a much fewer, wealthier group would have survived.

The Pope has pointed his finger of blame.  But as my boss told me once, when you point that finger forward, three fingers are pointing back at you.  The Pope and the Roman Catholic Church needs to accept the majority of the blame for global warming.  And, the Pope is in a position to rectify that problem!

It is obvious that the growth of the human population is what is the main driver behind global warming.  The more people there are, the more food, water, resources and energy we need.  Yes, the resources may not be distributed evenly.  However when everyone is competing for scarce resources, it creates stress on the environment and contributes to war.  Central and South America would have been a very wealthy region with stable governments and solid economies, if it weren't for the extremely rapid population growth over the past 50 years. Instead, the region has struggled and this latest Encyclical has created even more confusion. See this link  I attribute these problems directly to the Catholic Church's rules on birth control and abortion.


The Catholic Church's position on birth control and abortion has been a huge contributor towards the overpopulation of the world.  Because the Catholics profess anti birth control and abortion theology, other churches and religions have adopted the same theology.  It is clear that the evolution of the birth control and abortion theology was heavily influenced by the desire of the Pope at the time to expand the catholic religion and Christianity by increasing the population of "soldiers of Christ" to help create wealth for the church and to proselytize the non-believers.  In a sense, the theology was developed as a way to justify the Church's desire to expand and spread.  In a similar way Thomas Aquinas produced a theology that justified war, and turned Christianity from a "pacifist" religion to a fighting religion complete with soldiers, torture and killing of infidels.  The theology for birth control was established before the basic biological functions of birth were understood.  Children represented wealth.  The more children you had the better your farms could be tended, and the better you could be cared for in old age.  Natural disasters, plagues, wars and death during childbirth kept the population under control even with the rules against "wasting seed" (sperm) birth control existed.  Times have changed!

Other religions such as Islam and the Protestant sects adopted the same philosophy in order to "defend" against the expanding population of Catholics.  So now, in addition to the Catholics, the Muslims, Hassidic Jews, Baptists, and, of course, the Mormons are all trying to have as many children as possible to help spread their religion faster than the other competing religions.

China has shown the world that it is possible for a country to get its population under control.  Yes, it did use relatively harsh techniques.  However with inspired leadership, rules, laws, guidelines and incentives, I believe the rest of the world could also sharply cut the population growth rate.

If the Pope would reverse the current stand, he could call on leaders of all of the other religions to do the same.  Think of it as declaring a "truce" in the war of religions.  Maybe some, or hopefully most will also participate.

The right-wingers in the US Government including the Republicans in Congress and our Republican presidents have done everything they can to stop efforts at population control within the US and have virtually stopped all foreign aid efforts to assist other countries in slowing the growth of their populations.  The right-wingers cite "religious" or what they call "moral" reasons for preventing birth control or abortions.  The basis, or foundation of all of their arguments is the distorted theology created by monks in the Catholic Church during the 10th through 14th Century.  Those theologies were contrived by the monks in response to the various Pope's desires to expand the Roman Catholic Empire, expand the wealth, power and "majesty" of the church.  Looking back at history, anyone, including the Pope, can see that those motivations were bogus.  They didn't follow the teachings of Christ.  If the Pope could hit the "RESET" button on the Christian religion and go back to the basics of Christ's teachings, I believe a reversal of the Church's policy on birth control would rejuvenate the Christian religion, and save the world.

Secretive donors gave US climate denial groups $125m over three years

It is pretty clear to me that the globe is warming!  Vast majority of scientists around the world agree.  Most of the governments in the Western world agree and are taking steps to mitigate it.  However progress against global warming has been slowed by the lack of action taken by the world's largest polluting country, the United States.

It is human nature that before we take any action that we believe might be difficult, we want to make sure there is no reasonable doubt that it is the correct action, and that there are no other "easy alternatives" to solve the problem.  To stop, or slow down the effects of global warming will require significant investment and tightening of our carbon diet.  So before national leaders take those actions, they want to make sure that global warming is happening, and that the investments that will be made will be successful.

Seeds of doubt can poison, or stagnate any decision.  An article (by Suzanne Goldenberg and Helena Bengtsson) in "The Guardian" today reported that some "secretive donors" have donated $125M to pay a bunch of seemingly "independent think tanks" to promote those "seeds of doubt."



Secretive donors gave US climate denial groups $125m over three years | Environment | The Guardian



It appears that the funds were effective in that the findings from these several "right-wing" think tanks gave the appearance of independent thought.  Their pronouncements were presented by the press as "equal" to the global warming advocates, so they effectively stopped important legislation.  A very small investment was able to pay off, for the anti-global warming group.  I have very little respect for scientists who publish information they know is incorrect just to get paid.  However, I someone came to me and offered to pay me a million dollars to publish some technical lies, it would certainly be tempting!   So it might be easy to get 125 scientists to write BS with $125 million!



These reported payments have only been for a three year period, however I suspect that the payments have been made, in one way or another, to these organizations, and others, for as long as 20 years.  The funds are clearly linked, in some way, to the coal industry, which has something to lose in the long run if actions are taken to slow global warming.  The source of the funds is still anonymous, but I think there would be little doubt that the source of the funds is the Koch Brothers.

How could climate change affect North County coastline? | UTSanDiego.com

On May 3, 2015 Barbara Henry reported in the San Diego Union Tribune reported on the meetings that Carlsbad, Del Mar, Oceanside, Solana Beach, and Encinita had to discuss the problems of rising sea levels in North San Diego County..

How could climate change affect North County coastline? | UTSanDiego.com

The Cities are trying to obtain Federal funds to study the problem of rising oceans and then start to think about mitigating the rising water. Two cities, Carlsbad and Del Mar have received grant money, but the other three cities are still trying to get funds. The studies are supposed to be completed by April 2017, although FEMA has a study which should be completed sooner.  Yes, each city does have unique situations that may require specialized solutions over the long haul.  But, it seem to me that any solution for Carlsbad and Del Mar would be almost directly applicable to similar portions of the other three cities.  All of the cities have lagoons, railroad bridges, beaches and cliffs.

It seems very inefficient for each city, or even small group of cities to try to plan for rising sea levels, which we know are happening. Whatever the Cities decide to do will need approval from the Coastal Commission. Each city will have to do it one at a time, involving immense amounts of legal expense.  Yes, the Commission, per its charter, must balance public access, protection of the environment, public recreation along with protection of public and private property along the coast.  However it certainly doesn't make sense to get each city's plan, or each property owner's plan approved using the current adversarial approach with the Commision.

The right answer is for the California Coastal Commission to step up to the task of defining an overall vision for what should be done to protect our coast and coastal assets. After they develop the vision, they should develop approved standards for design and construction that, if followed, can be automatically approved by the Commission. The Commission's standards should take into account coastal access, environmental protection as well as appearance, life-cycle-cost, and protection of property during 100 yr storms or floods.  As it is now, anyone who makes any attempt to protect their property will be forced to pay significant fees and file complex applications for "coastal permits."  As part of the process, each applicant will be treated as a perpetrator of a crime, guilty until proven innocent, and forced to pay some sort of "ransom" (for example a million dollars in sand mitigation fees) in order to gain permission to protect their property. If the Commission doesn't step up to the task, our State Legislature should pass a law tasking the Commission to do it.

Additional articles on the subject:

https://thecoastnews.com/blog/2014/12/subcommittee-will-look-at-effects-of-sea-level-rise-on-encinitas/

Below is the Encinitas Committee Information

SEA LEVEL RISE SUBCOMMITTEE
Appointed Council Members: Tony Kranz, Lisa Shaffer
The City Council Sea Level Rise Subcommittee is comprised of Council Members Lisa Shaffer, Tony Kranz , City Staff, representatives from the city's Environmental Commission as well as representatives from neighboring North County Coastal Cities. The purpose of the subcommittee is to consider challenges from sea level rise and to develop a comprehensive strategy for addressing the impacts of sea level rise and other environmental threats in Encintias, particularly in Cardiff where Coast highway 101 is especially vulnerable. Bluff Erosion and opportunities to coordinate with the San Elijo Lagoon Restoration Project will also be explored.
Meetings:

April 30, 2015, 3:30-5:30 p.m. Workshop
Agenda (PDF)
Summary Report
Flip Chart Notes

Earth may have underground 'ocean' three times that on surface | Science | theguardian.com

This article in Guardian points out that there still is a lot we don't know about our earth.  Maybe there is something we can do to interact with the underground water to help mitigate global warming and improve the quality of life of earth's inhabitants.

Earth may have underground 'ocean' three times that on surface | Science | theguardian.com:



"After decades of searching scientists have discovered that a vast reservoir of water, enough to fill the Earth’s oceans three times over, may be trapped hundreds of miles beneath the surface, potentially transforming our understanding of how the planet was formed.

The water is locked up in a mineral called ringwoodite about 660km (400 miles) beneath the crust of the Earth, researchers say. Geophysicist Steve Jacobsen from Northwestern University in the US co-authored the study published in the journal Science and said the discovery suggested Earth’s water may have come from within, driven to the surface by geological activity, rather than being deposited by icy comets hitting the forming planet as held by the prevailing theories.

“Geological processes on the Earth’s surface, such as earthquakes or erupting volcanoes, are an expression of what is going on inside the Earth, out of our sight,” Jacobsen said.

“I think we are finally seeing evidence for a whole-Earth water cycle, which may help explain the vast amount of liquid water on the surface of our habitable planet. Scientists have been looking for this missing deep water for decades.”

Jacobsen and his colleagues are the first to provide direct evidence that there may be water in an area of the Earth’s mantle known as the transition zone. They based their findings on a study of a vast underground region extending across most of the interior of the US.

Ringwoodite acts like a sponge due to a crystal structure that makes it attract hydrogen and trap water.

If just 1% of the weight of mantle rock located in the transition zone was water it would be equivalent to nearly three times the amount of water in our oceans, Jacobsen said.

The study used data from the USArray, a network of seismometers across the US that measure the vibrations of earthquakes, combined with Jacobsen’s lab experiments on rocks simulating the high pressures found more than 600km underground.

It produced evidence that melting and movement of rock in the transition zone – hundreds of kilometres down, between the upper and lower mantles – led to a process where water could become fused and trapped in the rock.

The discovery is remarkable because most melting in the mantle was previously thought to occur at a much shallower distance, about 80km below the Earth’s surface.

Jacobsen told the New Scientist that the hidden water might also act as a buffer for the oceans on the surface, explaining why they have stayed the same size for millions of years. "If [the stored water] wasn't there, it would be on the surface of the Earth, and mountaintops would be the only land poking out," he said."



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Natural Gas Cars --will it catch on in the US?

After seeing how Thailand has fully incorporated natural gas into their transportation system, It seems that the United States, with it's large natural gas resources could also easily switch a lot of our transportation system over to natural gas.  This NY Times article is a good description of the current situation.

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2013/10/30/automobiles/natural-gas-waits-for-its-moment.html

Climate engineering ideas no longer considered pie in the sky - latimes.com

I've always thought there is a chance the world could work together to mitigate global warming and control climate.  It will take a lot of science, a lot of modeling, and, of course a lot of money and resources.  However I think the total amount of resources expended to mitigate global warming might be less than the cost of the damage that might be done.



Climate engineering ideas no longer considered pie in the sky - latimes.com:



The sad thing is that work and even discussion of climate engineering is somewhat suppressed because of the fear that even a "slight" hope that science could rescue the world from global warming would significantly reduce the minimal efforts the world is making to reduce production of greenhouse gasses.