In Encinitas, two big houses that neighbors Stanley Cantor and Paul Denver built on a coastal cliff were in danger of toppling into the Pacific 80 feet below, so they built a sea wall to check erosion.
Near Pismo Beach, waves gnawing at a bluff posed a hazard to the Cliffs hotel, so the owner installed a 13-foot-high boulder revetment on the beach.
And in Carmel, big winter storms three years ago obliterated much of the slope beneath Carl and Jane Panattoni's house, so they are building a 260-foot wooden barricade to hold back the waves.
So it goes, up and down the coast of California, in a pattern as predictable as the tides. People move to the rim of the Pacific, the ocean attacks, and bulwarks are thrown up to keep buildings from sliding into the surf.
Offshore drilling and beach closures receive more attention, but it is the quiet proliferation of sea walls that is dramatically altering the character of the California coast. Bit by bit, the sandy shores that inspired John Steinbeck and the Beach Boys are yielding to fortifications.
About one-quarter of the shoreline along a 535-mile stretch from the Golden Gate Bridge to the Mexico border is now fortified, according to the California Coastal Commission. And the pace of construction is accelerating. The agency estimates that about 10 miles of sea walls were added in the last decade alone.
"Sea walls are the single worst coastal crisis in California," said Mark Massara, coastal program manager for the Sierra Club. "We are slowly but surely walling off the entire coast."
Sea walls are considered a scourge for far more than their questionable aesthetics. The structures can destroy beaches and block coastal access. They cost a bundle to build and maintain, but inevitably succumb to the constant pounding of breakers. And they frequently benefit only a few wealthy coastal residents at the expense of the rest of the state's beachgoers.
Some states have banned sea walls and others have imposed significant restrictions. But in California, where the coastal population is exploding, they are more popular than ever. State law requires that a sea wall be approved if any structure is threatened. The alternative is to watch million-dollar homes break up in the surf like driftwood, and so far the state hasn't found the courage, or callousness, to do that.
"Armoring the coast presents a major current and future threat to public resources and it's a difficult political issue," said Peter M. Douglas, executive director of the state Coastal Commission.
