Beach Access and a Threatened Track

0:00 [music] -I moved here about seven years ago,

0:08 and I immediately noticed that the beaches were in trouble,

0:11 that they were starting to narrow.

0:14 As the beaches get narrower and narrower,

0:16 what happens is the railroad becomes worried about the security of their tracks,

0:20 and they start throwing out more and more

0:22 of these really large boulders that you see here, the riprap.

0:25 I started talking to the city and city officials about this problem

0:30 and how they needed to put more sand down and address this problem,

0:34 or else we're going to end up with beaches that are just filled with boulders.

0:39 -The rock is meant to protect the integrity of the rail line.

0:44 The armory provides a level of predictability

0:47 to anchor and protect the rail line.

0:50 The sand, while it is a very good source

0:53 for buffering between the Pacific Ocean and the rail line,

0:57 there's a lack of predictability in terms

0:59 of the ability for the sand to stay resident

1:02 for a long period of time such that there

1:05 isn't direct ocean wave intrusion against the rail line.

1:08 -What is ocean wave intrusion?

1:10 -That would be, in simple terms, the wave pounding against the rail line.

1:15 Mother Nature is a very strong force, and we have seen,

1:19 over the last handful of years,

1:22 there's been situations where there's literally no beach,

1:25 and what's separating the rail line is really just

1:28 the protection of the rocks that's there and the Pacific Ocean.

1:33 That's why it's needed to protect the rail line.

1:37 OCTA, as the County Transportation Agency,

1:39 owns 42 miles of the rail line in Orange County,

1:44 of which 7 miles of the rail line is

1:46 actually through a very critical southern Orange County portion,

1:50 and it goes through the cities of San Clemente

1:52 as well as Dana Point and San Juan Capistrano.

1:58 For the Amtrak service, it's actually the second busiest in the nation

2:01 from the standpoint of passenger throughput.

2:04 It is really the only alternative via the coast, the Interstate 5,

2:08 so it is a critical rail line that carries both

2:11 passenger as well as freight for our neighbors to the south.

2:15 This particular rail line has been in operation for over 130 years,

2:19 and for the first 120-plus years,

2:22 we have seen closures that happened, I would say, pretty sporadically,

2:28 but something happened along the way starting around fall of 2021 where we

2:32 have seen a series of rail closures

2:34 that's led to passenger rail service disruptions.

2:39 It's a function of both coastal erosion on the beach

2:42 side and inland bluff failures on the inland side.

2:45 It's a very challenging situation for the rail line to be nestled between

2:49 the Pacific Ocean to the west and then the inland bluffs to the east.

2:54 It's definitely a straightjacket for the rail line.

2:56 There's absolutely not a lot of room to maneuver.

3:01 -The amount of rock they have here we believe

3:03 is an appropriate amount to structurally support their tracks.

3:07 What they want to do is put rock all the way

3:11 out to there and across the entire San Clemente State Beach.

3:14 The boulders do at least temporarily

3:17 protect the structure of the railroad tracks,

3:20 but what they do is actually increase

3:22 the erosion and make the beaches erode even faster.

3:27 We used to get some erosion from the bluffs,

3:30 and that would feed some of the beaches,

3:32 but the railroad is elevated and that blocks that sand.

3:36 Every year we lose a little bit of sand offshore or down coast,

3:41 and if it's not replaced by natural sources,

3:43 the beach just gets narrower and narrower.

3:47 -Tonight, I want to focus on what will shape our coastline

3:51 in the near term and why it represents greatest immediate threat to our beaches.

3:55 We have a critical choice in San Clemente.

3:58 We can protect the rail line and our world-class beaches together,

4:01 or we can allow our beaches to disappear behind

4:04 a failing approach paid for with our tax dollars.

4:08 This is where you can help.

4:09 Support leaders that are advocating sand replenishment over hard armories.

4:13 -My organization is advocating for a sand-only or a sand-first approach.

4:18 We think that sand is the best way to protect the tracks,

4:24 and it's also the best way to protect this wonderful public

4:27 resource we have because the rocks themselves won't keep the water out.

4:31 The only thing that's going to keep the water out is the sandy beach.

4:38 You can truck in sand, we've done that on smaller projects,

4:41 but the trucking involves a lot of other undesirable environmental consequences.

4:46 There's air quality.

4:47 There's traffic.

4:49 It's just more expensive, and so for a larger project,

4:52 you really need to go offshore, and you dredge up.

4:55 What you're actually dredging up is ancient beach deposits.

4:59 During the last ice ages, the coastline was miles offshore,

5:04 and that's where the beaches were.

5:06 As the glaciers melted, it covered up those beaches,

5:09 and so we're going back out and seeking those ancient beach deposits,

5:13 and you dredge it up and place it back on the beach.

5:18 -What we're finding with respect to sand is while sand is

5:22 a great mechanism and instrument as a buffer for the rail line,

5:26 it takes a very large volume of sand to actually provide that sufficient buffer.

5:32 You're talking about potentially half a million or greater cubic yard of sand,

5:38 and in terms of that quantity, it would take many,

5:41 many years to actually be able to bring

5:44 that amount of sand in from a sand source,

5:48 and the permitting process is very complex when it comes to sand.

5:57 With the prediction that we're seeing with sea level

6:00 rise and climate change over the next 50 years,

6:03 any development, namely the tracks in South Orange

6:06 County with respect to this critical rail line,

6:09 will be vulnerable to both sea level rise

6:12 and climate change over the next several decades,

6:14 so that is something that we're mindful of, and we're looking to basically come

6:19 up with solutions to protect it in place

6:21 while we're looking at longer term solutions.

6:26 -There's been talk of moving the rails inland.

6:29 They started talking about it three years ago.

6:32 They got money for a study.

6:34 They spent the money on other things,

6:36 and now they have said that Caltrans is going to study the relocation.

6:40 The issue is there's no land.

6:43 The only land where they could do it would be the tunnel under the I-5 freeway.

6:47 That's going to take at least five years to study whether it

6:49 can be done and another 20 or 30 years to construct it.

6:53 That's a whole generation,

6:54 and I'm not willing for a generation to miss out on our beaches, and that rock,

7:02 once it's on our beach, isn't going to go away,

7:05 so it's a forever loss for all of our generations.

7:09 -Thanks for watching.

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7:16 I think you're going to love it.