Ok, the way I look at it ..we can continue fighting the tide or we can step back and come to grips with a changing coastline. Looks like weâve chosen to bunker down and fight. I believe this kind of old-school mentality just leads to faster erosion, more polluted water and fewer homes we can claim as beachfront property. What we end up with is a barrier thatâs in constant need of repair and beaches that sicken us. Thatâs what happens when you build out to the edge. Ask anyone who lives on Broad Beach in Malibu or on the bluffs in Santa Barbara. The beach has receded hundreds of feet since I moved here in the 1990âs. Ask any one who still surfs the river jetty in Newport. Respiratory ailments, skin rashes and diarrhea come with the territory. You might say it’s nature’s way of restoring balance. I agree with UC Santa Cruz Geologist Gary Griggs and the Pacific Institute. We gottaâ retreat. Move the fucking concrete and asphalt back a couple hundred yards and replace it with cobblestones and sand. Restore a wetland that once acted as a natural filter and did a much better job at keeping the sand on the beach. Or just sit back and watch the ocean reclaim its property. What weâll be left with are beaches of upturned asphalt, concrete pillars, rusted-out rebar and other detritus of a civilization that, for centuries, crammed its most valuable homes and businesses to the edge of the ocean.
Category: coastal zone
Jacques-Yves Cousteau
(11 June 1910 â 25 June 1997)
was a French naval officer, explorer, ecologist,
filmmaker, innovator, scientist, photographer, author and
researcher who studied the sea and all forms of life in water.
He co-developed the aqua-lung,
pioneered marine conservation and
was a member of the Académie française.
He was commonly known as “le Commandant Cousteau”
or “Captain Cousteau”.
Happy 100th birthday,
from the people of earth.
I hike up to a shady grove
and sit beside a wandering stream.
Watch water splash over polished stones
of silver, red and green
then disappear through the ferns
and whatever else that grows
under a canopy of redwood trees
somewhere above the coastal zone.
- Labels: bill, coastal zone, nature, poetry, zen
We used to call them swamps. Oil companies dumped sludge into them. Real estate developers excavated them ..and built pricey coastal communities like Marina Del Rey. Just north of there, surfers in Santa Monica began getting sick ..with symptoms ranging from skin rashes to heart attacks. I used to get ear infections. Investigators discovered high levels of toxins in the water ..both natural and man-made ..and began closing beaches for like months at a time. We donât call them swamps any longer. Theyâre âestuariesâ ..and they serve a purpose .. filtering runoff before it goes into the ocean ..removing contaminants .. keeping the shoreline hospitable ..and the ocean sustainable (ask a fisherman). The Bolsa Chica wetlands is the only one remaining in Southern California that hasnât been developed to the point where itâs lost all of that. A 40-year old feud between developers and environmentalists has kept it that way. Fanatical environmentalists. Iâll bet you thereâs not one person surfing the nearby river jetty who hasnât gotten sick.
- Labels: bill, coastal zone, earth, ecology, environment, ocean, paradigm shift, pollution