Tom Southern found a quiet spot to read a book along a stretch of San Clemente known as North Beach, a quaint bit of shore he’s been surfing at for more than 40 years.
But there was only so far he could go on the eroding beach because during high tide at this stretch, the ocean runs up to rock boulders, covering up the sand space, leaving no dry land to stretch out without getting clobbered by the sea.
Work to add 7,650 tons more of rock boulders from North Beach to Mariposa Beach started this week in an emergency effort by the Orange County Transportation Authority to protect the rail line that runs waterfront at this point.
For the next six weeks, passenger service has been halted to make way for freight train cars filled with the boulders, with workers building up the makeshift wall of stone to try and keep the ocean from battering the tracks.
It’s a controversial method of protection that worries environmentalists, community members and everyday beachgoers, as hardscape seawalls are thought to worsen erosion issues — the wave action can change as it hits the rocks, refracts and scours out sand, sucking grains further offshore.
“It’s just a vicious cycle, they keep adding rocks,” said Southern, a boat captain with Capt. Dave’s Dolphin and Whale Safari. “It’s going to take more sand … the more sand, the less rocks they need, right? So if we can replenish the beach, you wouldn’t have to dump the boulders in the first place.”
An estimated 240,000 cubic yards of sand is part of the emergency response project, OCTA officials say, it is just that part is much more complex.
“Sand is a significant part of the project, it is really the majority of the project,” OCTA spokesman Joel Zlotnik said. “When you look at the amount of sand we have planned and the amount of rock, 95% of it is sand and 5% is rip rap. This is a comprehensive project to protect the rail line, we are using the minimum amount of rip rap necessary.”
The rock being brought in for the start of the project in North Beach will, generally, be put where there’s already been rock in the past, Zlotnik said, strategically placed with excavators to make sure larger rocks are on the bottom.
“It’s reinforcing and repairing what’s already there,” Zlotnik said. “There’s rip rap that has been moved over time by wave action. That is being restocked and there are boulders being placed where rip rap is being moved.”
The OCTA’s $300 million coastal resilience plan includes replenishing sand, securing revetments with more boulders and building additional containment walls. The project follows several years of track damage along this section of the rail line where it is wedged between the ocean and towering beach cliffs that have crumbled with landslides, debris landing onto the tracks and causing weeks of service interruptions at a time.
The work is focused on priority areas in San Clemente along the Los Angeles – San Diego – San Luis Obispo Rail, or LOSSAN, Corridor, which transports commuters and freight.
Planners have not yet secured the sand portion of the project, which would stretch the beach out to provide an added buffer between the ocean and the tracks.
The agency has been in the talks with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to bring sand via dredger, much like a federal-led project that happened at the San Clemente Pier last year, sucking sand from offshore near Surfside in Huntington Beach and transporting it by boat.
That plan, however, couldn’t happen until late 2026, based on the dredger’s availability.
Some have suggested tapping Prado Dam, where plenty of sand sits stuck and awaiting a new home. OCTA planners have said that solution proves to be complicated, needing a specialized contraption to load and offload sediment.
Orange County Fifth District Supervisor Katrina Foley, who also sits on the OCTA board and has led efforts to replenish the region’s beaches, said her staff were in talks with Southern California Edison to potentially haul the sand from Prado Dam to the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station, where it can travel a shorter distance to San Clemente’s shoreline.
The city is also searching for sand just off its own shoreline as a solution to cut down the high cost of transport — sampling and studies are currently underway.
OCTA CEO Darrell Johnson, in an update to board members earlier this week, said the sand may have to come in small increments, but permitting efforts are underway in case they can secure inland sources.
Transport from inland would come with its own challenges, with every 12,000 cubic yards of sand equating to 1,000 truck trips.
But sand, he assures, is an integral part of the plan.
“There is some concern we are going to renege on that commitment,” he said. “The answer is we are not going to renege on that commitment. The permitting process is much more difficult and the lead time is much longer.”
The OCTA also put out a request in the private sector for proposals to find sand suppliers and alternatives, but didn’t get the response it was hoping for and extended the deadline through May 5, Johnson said.
“Although we are somewhat disappointed in the responses to date, we are still hopeful,” he added.
Southern wonders if all options are being explored, suggesting a pipeline could be built to feed sediment down San Juan Creek on a continuous basis to replenish the entire south Orange County coastal area. But that, he notes, would take long-term planning efforts.
The work underway this week is the only portion of the OCTA’s project to earn approvals so far through the California Coastal Commission.
Discussions about the Mariposa Beach area, where the bridge damage occurred last year and where a landslide is still active, are expected at the commission’s May 7 meeting.
OCTA officials hope to build a permanent 1,400-foot-long wall — about half a mile — on the inland side of the tracks to hold back the land movement and build a ground-level pedestrian pathway to replace what used to be the bridge that connects the city’s popular coastal trail.
The OCTA will also be submitting permitting documents to the state agency to move forward with work to address concerns in the south end of town, with 2,100 tons of rock boulders and a 1,200-foot-long “shoreline protection” structure. An estimated 300,000 cubic yards of sand would be replenished at and around San Clemente State Beach, officials have said.
Rock boulders were added under emergency permit in 2021 in response to track damage by the sea and a landslide, with critics saying the work had negative impacts on the beach, covering valuable beach space and worsening erosion.
Surfer Gavin Harris was out in the water off North Beach with his father, Nate, on a recent morning discussing the impact of the rocks put down last year by OCTA further south, and the upcoming work now on the north end of town.
“I just know they will be dumping a ton more rocks in this section, and I think it’s going to ruin the whole beach for us,” he said. “They already did it at the (south end) and there’s no beach anymore there. I feel like the same is going to happen here.”
The start of the project will set the tone for the remainder of the project, a chance for OCTA to build “trust and support,” said Joe Wilson, one of the founding members of the advocacy group Save Our Beaches, which formed to advocate for the use of sand over rocks in plans.
“Today’s situation with emergency repairs is being watched closely by our city leaders and the public in terms of any damage to the beach,” Wilson said.