Darla O’Dea stopped her bike ride to soak in the sight at Capistrano Beach as strong waves and high tides pushed cobble and rock into the parking lot, each wave threatening what’s left of the battered beach.
“This is crazy,” said the San Clemente resident during last week’s big swell event. “We used to take our kids to this beach. They used to have basketball courts… It’s sad. It’s really sad to see all of this.”
County officials will hold a public meeting at 6 p.m. on Thursday, Nov. 13, at the OC Sailing and Events Center in the Dana Point Harbor to discuss the troubled area and update the public on where plans stand for a shoreline project that proposes to create natural dunes between Capistrano Beach and Doheny Beach to slow erosion.
The beach was once so wide, in much part due to sand placed in the ’60s from the build out of the nearby harbor, it had volleyball courts and was the go-to spot for gathering around fire rings.
The basketball court, restrooms and wooden walkway, popular amenities at the beloved beach were destroyed by storms in 2018.
Now, little sand space remains, with no beach when the tides are high — a problem plaguing not just this small stretch of beach, but several others up and down the California coast that are suffering from erosion.
The county put together a detailed plan for addressing the erosion, held several community meetings and gained necessary approvals – but funding earmarked by the federal government, about $10 million through a FEMA grant, was canceled, said Fifth District Supervisor Katrina Foley, who has been an advocate for solutions as the region’s coastline continues to erode.
“The project was moving along and we were literally getting ready to do something,” she said.
Now the county is awaiting word on a $12 million grant request from the state’s Prop. 4, a climate bond passed by voters, which earmarks funds for “living shorelines,” a mix of plants, cobble and natural dunes that are thought to fare better against erosion than “hard armoring” shores with boulders and seawalls, which many experts say worsen the problem.
The plan proposed by OC Parks includes a 1,150-foot system of vegetated sand dunes over a cobble berm between Doheny State Beach to the north and beachfront homes to the south.
“They’ve done this in Ventura, where it has been effective,” Foley said.
Foley helped create a South County Beaches Coalition to develop creative ways to find solutions and a “coastal maintenance plan” similar to how roads and parks need to be maintained.
“That’s what my goal is with the coalition, to start to develop a comprehensive plan, so we’re not being reactionary,” she said.
There have been shots of sand trucked in from the Santa Ana River in recent years, but the overall project is “taking way too long,” Foley said.
“Once we got the funding, we really were aggressive trying to get it going with the design and approvals, and now we’ve lost the funding. It keeps getting delayed because of funding,” she said.
Users of the quaint beach hope something can be done, sooner rather than later. On a recent day, bikers, parents pushing strollers and a man in a wheelchair all tried to navigate a flooded path littered with rocks and cobble as the ocean rushed over the little sand remaining.
“It’s sad, it’s really sad to see all of this,” O’Dea said. “I don’t think this is going to be here. In my opinion, there’s not going to be a walkway. It will all be blocked off and unattainable for most people that are walkers or cyclists.”