Society 6 min read By Arthur Ellington
San Clemente voters weigh beach tax as coastal erosion threatens rail line
Residents of the Southern California city of San Clemente will vote in November on a 1% sales tax to fund sand replenishment and wildfire protection, as erosion splits the beach and repeatedly closes a key passenger rail corridor.
Residents of San Clemente, a Southern California beach town of about 62,000 people, will decide in November whether to tax themselves to rebuild a shoreline that coastal erosion has steadily consumed. A measure on the ballot would add a 1% sales tax, with revenue earmarked for sand replenishment and wildfire protection.
The proposal has emerged from a problem that has reshaped daily life in the city, long known as a «Spanish village by the sea». Rising seas and heavier surf have pushed the shoreline landward, splitting the picturesque North Beach and cutting off a walkable stretch that once ran for a mile. Crumbling seaside bluffs have damaged oceanfront homes and forced repeated closures of a passenger rail line regarded as the second busiest in the United States.
«We've lost our walkable beach», said Cameron Cosgrove, a San Clemente resident who wrote the tax measure. «It used to be you could come to North Beach, walk the beach trail, or on the beach to the pier and actually all the way down to the south end of town. Can't do either anymore.»
The erosion is not unique to San Clemente. Nearly a decade ago, scientists forecast that more than half of Southern California's beaches could significantly erode by 2100, altering how people live and recreate along the state's coast. Sean Vitousek, a research oceanographer with the U.S. Geological Survey, described the underlying driver as relentless. «The constant pressure is sea level rise», he said. «It is going to keep rising, and rising, and the beaches will retreat landward.»
California is now bracing for flooding and landslides ahead of an expected super El Niño, a temporary warming of parts of the equatorial Pacific known to distort weather worldwide. A recent study found that El Niño events are growing stronger because of human-caused climate change. Earlier this year, the town of Pacifica, south of San Francisco, closed its cracked concrete pier, and seawater flooded homes in Long Beach during a hurricane-driven storm surge.
In San Clemente, urban development has slowed the flow of sediment that once nourished the beaches, while warmer ocean waters have pushed waves higher and further ashore. The consequences are visible along the rail corridor. Over the past five years, the line that has run along the coast for more than a century has faced repeated closures, squeezed between encroaching surf on one side and fragile bluffs on the other.
The seven-mile segment forms part of a 351-mile passenger rail corridor linking San Diego with the huge port complex of Los Angeles County and San Luis Obispo. It is also used by freight and the military. Transportation officials have laid down rock to protect the tracks, but as waves slam against the rock, they sweep more sand offshore and accelerate the erosion that will eventually threaten the line again.
City and transit officials agree that more sand is needed, noting that coastal communities including the surf hub of Huntington Beach have nourished their beaches for years. City Manager Andy Hall said San Clemente faces a sand deficit of about 3 million cubic yards. Trucking in that volume would require roughly 300,000 trips, he said.
Darrell Johnson, chief executive of the Orange County Transportation Authority, said a persistent challenge has been securing state permits for more sand. He hopes California's recent emergency declaration ahead of El Niño will speed up the process. In the longer term, Johnson said officials will study moving the trains inland, an idea previously deemed too costly. A third option, he said, would be to halt the line altogether. «If we can't figure out how to shore up properly in a way that is long-term in nature, and we can't figure out how to relocate, I think that is a question that's going to have to be asked», he said. «What happens to passenger rail? What happens to freight?»
Opponents of the ballot measure support adding sand but object to the tax, arguing that San Clemente should pursue a regional approach with neighbouring communities. «Fighting Mother Nature is very expensive», said City Councilman Zhen Wu, who opposes the measure.
Further south, transportation officials have been stabilising coastal bluffs to shore up the rail line in Del Mar, with a plan to eventually move the tracks, though no destination has been decided. Charlie Fox, a 56-year-old San Clemente resident and marine meteorologist, said sand provides a critical buffer between the ocean and whatever is built along the coast, including train tracks, homes and lifeguard headquarters. The lifelong surfer added that sand also helps waves roll gently onshore, creating a steady break for surfing.
On a recent morning, surfers bobbed in the water off North Beach, not far from the rocky structure shoring up the tracks. «When you see those rocks, that's them attempting to fight the ocean», Fox said. «That is a futile endeavour.» He added: «The ocean wins. Ocean always eventually wins.»
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