SPONSORS

The city is paying $100,000 and waiting a full year for a study that could lead to big changes in the breakwater and transform Long Beach. But The District Weekly’s study is done now

PHOTO COURTESY KEN LARKEY, CURATOR OF THE LONG BEACH HERITAGE MUSEUM

WAITING FOR THE SHIP TO COME IN
Twelve pages have been peeled off the calendar, one full year since the Long Beach City Council voted to fund a $100,000 answer to a single question: Should the city reconfigure the Long Beach Breakwater?

One year feels like a long time when you recall that community activists have spent the last 12 years fighting for such a study, and that the long pile of rocks has been sitting out there for 57 years, blocking waves and turning the local waterfront into a bedpan.

It’s been so long that even the slow-moving city grew tired of waiting and wading through some of the nastiest, stickiest government red tape on the planet—red tape produced by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the federal agency that brought you the Hurricane Katrina disaster in New Orleans.

Last month, with federal and state financial support still pending, city officials broke the stalemate. They voted to hire coastal engineering firm Moffatt & Nichol to untangle the breakwater knot—a hellish tangle of oil islands, container ships, marinas, vulnerable properties, endangered species, respirator-run ecosystems and one desolate, very long beach. That’s the good news. The bad news: It’ll be another year before this mega-firm concludes its study, involving a handful of such Army Corps big-title considerations as “Ecosystem Restoration,” “Navigable Waters & Ports,” “Flood & Storm Protection,” “Coastal Protection” and—one that only sort-of counts—“Recreation.”

We don’t want to wait that long. We’re tired of waiting on the feds to show us the money. We’re still waiting on studies that take years and boatloads of cash to complete. We’re angry waiting for questions to be asked where some answers already exist. So this is what we came up with: The District Weekly Reconnaissance Study of the Long Beach Breakwater. Take one—they’re free!

RECON 101
So what is this reconnaissance study? It’s a way for the Army Corps to figure out if the federal government should care enough about a proposed project to eventually spend a lot of money on it—this is called having a “federal interest” or a “greater-than-one cost-to-benefit ratio.”

Recon studies are the first of three phases in the Army Corps process. The second, or feasibility phase, involves original research, a full environmental impact report and all those flow charts and widgets that identify solutions to the problems. For Long Beach, this would presumably take four years (depending on congressional funding) and cost between $3 and $5 million—half of which the city would be responsible for.

The third and final phase—“Pre-Construction, Engineering & Construction”—is the longest and most expensive, dealing with actual physical changes to a region (in this case, the actual modifications of the breakwater and surrounding environment). The city will agree to pay 35 percent of this cost—a cost no one really knows just yet.

Technically, recon studies aren’t even used much anymore by the Army Corps. Everybody’s doing the Expedited Reconnaissance Study (ERS) now—different in that it is shorter and involves two big stacks of paper: A Section 905(b) analysis and a Project Management Plan (PMP). The former is a fill-in-the-blank document provided by the Army Corps that will summarize the results of the study; the latter will outline the scope of work ahead and a give a cost estimate for the feasibility phase.

Contrary to popular misconception, a recon study does not involve new research, it will not solve the problems observed during the study, and it does not involve any new construction or modification. It is, simply, a catalog—a list, really—of the detriments and benefits for the area under consideration, and how the proposed changes (in this case, changes to the breakwater) will affect the project area (in this case, the ocean and the city of Long Beach). If the benefits of reconfiguration outweigh the costs, there may be a federal interest to help pay for the next two phases.

A WORD ABOUT FEDERAL INTEREST
It works like this: If the benefits of breakwater reconfiguration outweigh the costs and detriments, the feds are obligated to help pay for the next phases of the process—feasibility and pre-construction/construction. If the study determines that there is no federal interest in modifying the breakwater—that reconfiguration will disrupt more than it will cure in the long run—the feds will not fund it and the process is over. End of story.

DEEP SEA BACKGROUND
In a shoulda-coulda-woulda world, the past year of confusion should have, could have and would have been avoided if our local democracy worked properly—if Congressman Dana Rohrabacher (R-Huntington Beach) had submitted a federal appropriations request just one of the three times city officials asked him to do so.

Instead, Rohrabacher turned down each request, contending that studying the reconfiguration of the Long Beach Breakwater is a local issue undeserving of federal money. Never mind that the breakwater is a federal structure and that local government can’t touch it. Despite repeated attempts to contact him, Rohrabacher did not return The District’s phone calls or e-mails on the subject; presumably, he was too busy playing in the ocean—in Huntington Beach, where there is surf.

Luckily—and we thought we’d never say this—there was Rep. Laura Richardson, whose congressional district, like Rohrabacher’s, includes parts of Long Beach. Richardson and U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein submitted requests for the recon funding. But on July 15, the U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee released its voting results for the FY 09 Energy and Water Bill. That’s where a $30,000 appropriation for the Long Beach Breakwater study was supposed to be, but wasn’t. That $30,000 would have paid the Army Corps to review Moffatt & Nichols’ study. Better luck next year, Long Beach.

PARAMETERS OF THE STUDY
The District Weekly Reconnaissance Study of the Long Beach Breakwater is based upon a year of research and investigation. It outlines the benefits and detriments of breakwater reconfiguration—which, by the way, is just a technical word that includes any kind of change to the structure. Our recon study draws from previously published reports, as well as fresh information and perspectives culled from interviews with more than 20 experts. Unlike other recon studies, ours will not require an Army Corps dictionary or a National Geographic field guide.

ILLUSTRATION by JENNY STOCKDALE

DESCRIPTION OF ALTERNATIVES UNDER CONSIDERATION
In 1996, Press-Telegram columnist Bill Hillburg fantasized about detonating explosives on the breakwater—about having the mayor sink the whole thing as a publicity stunt to rejuvenate Long Beach. The Beach Boys’ “Surfin’ USA” would blast from lifeguard towers (we imagine big-ass Marshall speakers) while everyone looked on with delight.

Blowing the breakwater to smithereens isn’t an option that the city or the local chapter of Surfrider is considering. First—and despite Congressman Rohrabacher’s confusion about U.S. law—the breakwater is federal property; blowing it up would be a federal offense. Other options for reconfiguration range from lowering the height of the breakwater by 20 feet, removing one or several 1,800-foot sections, punching many smaller gaps along the entire length of it, or any combination of the three.

Some have proposed building a shallow water habitat out of the removed rocks. Others have recommended building a hard structure on or close to the beach to protect sections of the city from new open-ocean exposure.

RECREATION
Of all the Army Corps’ missions, “Recreation” carries the least weight, mainly because more immediate revenue is at stake if container ships can’t re-stock Walmart and Target stores than if families can’t swim at the beach. That’s how the feds see it, anyhow. But recreation is factored into the cost-to-benefit ratio, in some vague way that the Army Corps can’t really explain.

To the rest of us, however, this may be the most important of benefits flowing from a reconfigured breakwater. Downtown businessman and activist John Morris has an entire presentation dedicated to the idea that clean ocean water and waves will transform Long Beach; his video compares post-breakwater Long Beach to the French Riviera—high-rise hotels; rising tax revenue from increased sales and higher property values; our streets thronging with residents and tourists in one happy, festive, parti-colored, endless parade.

What we stand to lose: Some of our windsurfing and other recreational boating activities. Down the line, maybe “affordable” coastal housing.

What we stand to gain: Increased tourism traffic and all the pros and cons that come with it. A functional, wave-bearing, healthier beach providing low-cost family fun. Increased citywide self-esteem. Higher property values. A dramatic increase in tax revenue for the city, the county and the state.

Meet Philip King—an associate professor at San Francisco State University and the economic expert for Moffatt & Nichols’ recon study. King specializes in the economic value of California’s beaches, and in 2003 he published a report that quantified how much money the U.S. and state economies would lose if California’s beaches did not exist.

According to the report, “The state of California would lose $509 million in direct tax losses annually,” if all the beaches disappeared. “With no beaches, California would lose $5.5 billion in Gross State Product (GSP) annually, while the US economy would lose $2.4 billion in Gross National Product (GNP) annually,” because people would spend their money in other states and other countries if they couldn’t beach-bum it in Cali.

It’s ridiculous, then, to claim that the city of Long Beach isn’t missing out on some of that gravy by not having an active beach. In 2007, Surfrider released a study that showed the economic losses Long Beach suffers by not having a healthy coast. By comparing Long Beach to nearby Seal Beach, the study claims Long Beach could gain an extra $110 million annually from increased tourism traffic alone—revenue that will come to businesses “all along the coast and inland.”

That same study claims Long Beach real estate is worth far less than cities like Redondo, Huntington, Hermosa and Manhattan. The reason: Long Beach is missing clean water and surf.

So if there’s silver lining to dank water and a wave-less shore, this may be it: Our real estate is cheaper than in surrounding areas. Local real estate agents call Long Beach home values “affordable” compared to property in neighboring coastal cities. One agent, who prefers to remain unnamed because of the backlash that might come to her professional life from speaking about the breakwater, said Long Beach homes have much lower price tags for no better reason than, “It’s Long Beach! That’s why! It’s a very diverse stigma attached to a blue-collar town.”

Robert Miladovich, an active realtor in Long Beach for 19 years, figures Long Beach homes are worth roughly 30 percent less than homes in similar coastal towns, although he says there are lots of variables to consider.

“Probably there would be an increase in property values [if Long Beach had a popular beach],” he said. “But it’s hard to say what more traffic, more tourism and more [people] on the beach might do in this city.”

ECOSYSTEM RESTORATION
By the Army Corps’ definition, this mission is to “re-establish the attributes of a natural functioning and self-regulating system.” In Long Beach, this deals with restoring natural ocean and sand circulation, as well as improving the quality of habitat for local flora and fauna (humans included).

What we stand to lose: Existing habitat for birds, juvenile fish and many other marine organisms—some of which are endangered—that call the breakwater home.

What we stand to gain: A mitigation project resulting in a shallow water habitat for the critters mentioned above. A thriving kelp forest to sustain them. Better open-ocean circulation. Improved water quality.

At the moment, the Long Beach ecosystem is nowhere near “natural functioning” and “self-regulating.” More trash than sand flows down the rivers that girdle the city’s eastern and western limits (which, okay, is not the breakwater’s fault), and all that trash is dumped into the warm embrace of the breakwater. And it stays there. The lack of waves—primary sources of circulation and sand transport? The breakwater causes that.

But nature is resilient. Like the dandelions that grow up in the cracks of a city’s sidewalks, birds, fish and other creatures this side of the breakwater are coping. Some are even thriving, and a few—like the purple sea urchin—are doing so well, they’ve become a problem. But the breakwater is not part of the natural functioning system. It’s a very old impediment to which inhabitants, including humans, have adapted.

And thanks to the Endangered Species Act, that successful adaptation may make modification to the breakwater tricky. As we reported in June, there’s at least one federal and state endangered species using the breakwater as a habitat: The California brown pelican roosts on the guano-stained breakwater in thousands. But bird experts are optimistic that the population of the brown pelican has recovered to the point that it will soon be removed from the endangered species list and won’t halt the project in the feasibility phase, when an environmental impact report is conducted.

“I am personally neutral on the breakwater issue,” says Rich Sonnenberg, president of El Dorado Audubon Society. “But I do think that if it is removed the pelicans will find somewhere else to roost.”

That “somewhere else to roost” could be a mitigation site—some other suitable place created specifically for the flora and fauna displaced by the breakwater’s reconfiguration. With the right mitigation project, juvenile fish, headline-making lobsters and other species living along the inside length of the breakwater will find a new place to swim—maybe even in a better-circulated artificial reef or a shallow water habitat.

In fact, a shallow water habitat might be the best option for mitigation, according to Dave Meyer of Algalita Marine Research Foundation, an organization that monitors and maintains the vanishing Southern California kelp forest. Kelp forests are vital to marine ecosystems because they harbor and sustain more than 800 species.

You can tell a lot about a marine ecosystem’s health based on the growth of its kelp, Meyer says. In Long Beach, “The only parts of the kelp forest that maintain any integrity now are by the ends of the breakwater” because, he notes, those regions have all four characteristics needed for kelp to thrive: a cold current, nutrient-rich water, good lighting and water clarity. He also thinks a shallow water habitat would help kelp grow faster, giving it more places to attach to and spread out.

Kelp can’t grow, though, unless the water’s in good shape. Bud Johnson, a retired engineer, and whom LBPost.com called “The Man Who Solved the Breakwater,” thinks he’s got that shape figured out. In a draft report he’s donating to the city, Johnson predicts that bringing the breakwater down 15 feet along a single 1,800-foot gap on the western end of the wall will drastically improve water quality without all the uncertainty of other alternatives.

Johnson also has a few words about official studies that just waste time and money.

“This report should be a baseline for the $100,000,” he says, referring to his draft study on reconfiguration. “Come up with reasons why this shouldn’t be, rather than a report that says, ‘Further studies are necessary.’ Consultants love that. It’s ‘What answer do you want?’—they write it and prove it. It just delays the process, another four years go by, then terms are up.”

Johnson, who still uses a protractor and a mechanical pencil, also shows in the report how the port’s protective “breakwater fingers” dangling off Pier J further block the surf because they run parallel to Queens Gate—the only opening on the western side of the breakwater.

In the 1970s, Army Corps studies warned that the Pier J extension would further strangle the harbor’s already minimal circulation. When the final votes came in, water circulation lost out to commerce.

ILLUSTRATION by JENNY STOCKDALE

NAVIGABLE WATERS & PORTS
Superseding any other Army Corps mission, this one involves “supporting navigation by maintaining and improving channels.” In Long Beach, this takes into consideration port commerce activities, offshore oil island operations and national defense.

What we stand to lose: A 2.14-mile stretch of wave-less harbor water that currently makes for almost-seamless anchorage of port traffic, oil island vessels and recreational boaters. A defense mechanism built to withstand submarine warfare. And an “active explosives anchorage site” (this is the official term used by the Navy) for the Seal Beach Naval Weapons Station.

What we stand to gain: An expanded port complex that (in exchange for that expansion) pays for the mitigation effort of a shallow water habitat or artificial reef, as seen at the Port of Los Angeles. Navigational hazards caused by these artificial habitats are minimal, with the right operational tactics.

Regarding the oil islands, Bill McFarland, vice president of human resources for THUMS Long Beach Co.—the firm that owns and operates the islands—isn’t sure they could withstand open ocean conditions presented by a reconfigured breakwater. But his predecessor, Steve Marsh, told the Press-Telegram in 1996 that “the islands are built to withstand storms.” He added that the only damage to the islands was caused by LA River overflow after a 1983 storm.

“I’m really surprised that the [oil] islands are a big focal point,” McFarland added, “because really the commerce of the port would be the biggest impediment.”

However, just last year Port of Long Beach spokesman Art Wong claimed the port has no say in it. That’s because the breakwater we’re talking about is just one of three in the San Pedro Breakwater Complex: One protects the Port of LA, another the Port of Long Beach. And the third—the one under consideration here? “That section of the breakwater is outside of our jurisdiction,” Wong said. He spat the words, and seemed irritated. “It’s owned by the federal government. I don’t know why people keep asking what we think about it. It’s not up to us.”

But there’s no denying that support from the Port of Long Beach would help the project jump through the bureaucratic hoops a little faster. Money is good grease, and the port—which reported profits of $190 million in 2007—has lots of it. Johnson, the retired engineer, speaks highly of the port, though: “The port gets a bad rap,” he says. “Every time we’ve had a downer, like in the 1920s, the port helped us out. People don’t realize, without the port, we have nothing—entertainment, but that’s not enough.”

Regarding the breakwater recon process, however, Harbor Commissioner Mario Cordero said, “Any future commitment [from the port] is not there, whatsoever.”

Complicating the matter further, U.S. Navy Public Affairs Officer Gregg Smith confirmed that neighboring Seal Beach Naval Weapons Station still has the right to explosives anchorage—loading and unloading weapons at sea—behind the breakwater. Defense usually reigns supreme in wartime, but the Navy is not formally opposed to reconfiguration.

“I think the Navy would look very closely at the situation to see how the Naval Weapons Station would be affected by any potential reconfiguration,” Smith said—not really saying anything but, most importantly, not saying no.

Have shallow water habitats impaired navigation elsewhere? There are two of them next door at the Port of Los Angeles—Pier 400 and Cabrillo.

“Shallow water habitats aren’t causing a problem at Cabrillo or Pier 400,” says Theresa Adams Lopez, director of media relations for the Port of Los Angeles. “With our large container ships and other vessels, we’ve actually put Port of Los Angeles pilots on each ship as it comes into the port. For the smaller boats we print a mariner’s guide with a map in the middle showing the location and the depths [of the reefs], so we’re covered on both ends.”

Granted, there are many drawbacks for reconfiguration where navigation is concerned. But Johnson, who knows that the port has nowhere to grow but out, thinks any opportunity the port might have to expand responsibly is worth looking into.

FLOOD & STORM PROTECTION AND COASTAL PROTECTION
This involves projects constructed and maintained by the Army Corps—breakwaters, jetties, groin fields, dams, levees or non-structural flood damage reduction measures—to mitigate the effects of natural disasters. The Army Corps “looks for the most economical, environmentally sound and socially acceptable solution to shore protection.”

What we stand to lose: A barrier between land and sea that has decreased open-ocean wave energy coming into Long Beach for a long time. A defense against storm-induced flooding of coastal properties, particularly in Shoreline Village, the Los Alamitos Peninsula and among the marinas built after the breakwater was completed. Predictable erosion patterns. Protection for tourist attractions like the Queen Mary and the Belmont Veterans Memorial Pier.

What we stand to gain: A wider beach caused by increased wave action. A new design perhaps involving the construction of a groin field (a series of erosion-control jetties that run perpendicular to shore) while still allowing ocean circulation. A better method of protecting coastal homes from the flooding that happens even now, even with the breakwater in place.

Let’s begin with a little science lesson: Littoral drift—a series of swash (waves coming onto the shore) and backwash (waves going back out to sea), approaching and departing the beachfront at different angles to shore—is a natural constructive process that moves sediment down a beach. This process is also what originally created Alamitos Peninsula, which in marine science terms is a “spit,” or strip of sand bar. The breakwater, port expansion and cementation of the L.A. River killed littoral drift in Long Beach.

According to Bruce Perry, a geology teacher at Cal State Long Beach, that littoral drift would be partially restored if the breakwater were reconfigured to allow more open-ocean circulation.

Perry also said a wide beach is the best protection from the unpredictably ferocious ocean and that a natural sediment cycle is the best way to get a wide beach. Long Beach’s sediment cycle will never be fully restored, but, with a little tweaking, can be repaired and become more functional.

Local coastal engineer Seamus Innes says, “If the breakwater was removed, or parts of it were removed and nothing else was changed, the risk of flooding would obviously increase. But you can combine that with a groin field or more sand or some other combination of change.”

And stop laughing: “groin field” is not a dirty word. West Newport Beach exists today precisely because Orange County created a groin field there in the 1960s.

Everyone’s afraid to say it out loud, but Army Corps studies in the early 1950s and a recent one in 2000 suggest that the design of the breakwater, in conjunction with southern swells that enter between the breakwater and the Alamitos Jetty, actually erodes the peninsula. The city handles that erosion with a process called “sand bypassing”: big yellow tractors haul tons of sand from Dog Beach down to the peninsula. That costs taxpayers upwards of $500,000 per year to fix; if you’re paying attention, that annual expense is roughly equal to the cost of five recon studies per year. In many locations along the California coast, the state pays for sand bypassing, but not here. Not in Long Beach.

And then there’s this: No one wants to discount the role of the breakwater in protecting some homes and other property. But it’s worth noting that the Environmental Protection Agency has said that, at some point in the next 50 years, many coastal properties will be inundated beneath worldwide rising sea levels. Reconfigured or not, the breakwater won’t stop that global process.

YOU DO THE MATH
Is there a federal interest in reconfiguring the Long Beach Breakwater? We think so. At the very least, the federal government has an obligation find out how the breakwater positively and negatively affects a tax-paying base of 500,000 people. And then it has an obligation to eliminate the negatives.

Of course, this won’t come easy. Rocks are heavy. Money is tight. People can’t agree on what to do with the sidewalks, let alone the ocean. But this is a chance to do something that will make Long Beach the city it has always aspired to be, and will do so simply by removing an artificial barrier to its greatness. Nature will handle most of the rest.

For information on how the breakwater might affect the Alamitos peninsula, click here

THANK YOU to all who contributed to this report: Tom Modica; Art Wong; Mario Cordero and the Port of Long Beach; Bruce Perry; Rick Brizendine and the Peninsula Beach Preservation Group; Rob Miladovich; Phil King, Ph.D.; Russ Boudreau and Moffatt & Nichol; Ed Hendricks; Robert Palmer; Gordana Kajer and the Surfrider Foundation; Seamus Innes, C.P.; Bud Johnson, C.P.; Steve Asceti; Dick Wayman and the California Coastal Conservancy; Bill Hillburg; Leonard Arkinstall; Eric Zahn and the Los Cerritos Wetland Authority; David Meyer and Algalita Marine Research Foundation; Gregg Smith and the Seal Beach Naval Weapons Station; Rich Sonnenberg and the El Dorado Audubon; Dan Sulzar; Ed Demesa; Greg Fuderer; Daniel Calderon; Victoria McAllister and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers; Dan Gross; Bill McFarland; Dennis Eschen; Theresa Adams Lopez and the Port of Los Angeles; William Marshall; and yes, even Laura Richardson. But not Dana Rohrabacher, who, at press time, had not responded to our requests for information.

Tags: breakwater, dana rohrabacher, Long Beach, Port of Long Beach, PORT OF LOS ANGELES, recon study