Erosion

Broad Beach has long been a scenic backdrop to Malibu's public access wars. The tranquil rhythm of surf has been routinely shattered by security guards and sheriff's deputies bouncing beachgoers who spread towels on the confusing mosaic of public and private sand. Today, Broad Beach has shrunk into a narrow sliver of its former self. And like other skinny Malibu icons, its slenderness qualified the beach for a different kind of trend-setting role: How California will deal with rising sea levels.

It's a treacherous, serpentine stretch of Topanga Canyon Boulevard dubbed the Narrows, and it's the bane of cyclists and runners alike. Bounded by a sandstone bluff on one side and a sheer drop into the Topanga Canyon Creek on the other, the Narrows is infamous for washouts, landslides and fallen rocks that frequently paralyze long lines of commuters traveling between the Valley and the Westside.

Beneath a moonlit Arctic sky, Joe Swan Jr. and most of his 12-person crew were taking a cigarette break when a dump truck arrived and emptied another load of black sand at their feet. The backhoe driver, who happened to be his wife, gunned the engine, spewing a diesel haze into the air as she dug into the pile and filled another 2,500-pound sandbag for the sea wall shielding the island from the Chukchi Sea.

Stanley Tom recently invited the most politically connected man in the state to visit his small village on Alaska's western coast. Tom wanted U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens to witness for himself the continuing natural disaster that threatens Newtok and dozens of other coastal villages. Tidal erosion caused by warming temperatures continues to eat away at the shoreline and imperil not just the Yupik Eskimo inhabitants but their ancient way of life.

When Illinois Lt. Gov. Pat Quinn was chatting with a team of scientists in Louisiana more than a year ago, he offered to sling some mud down south. Millions of tons of unwanted gooey sludge were choking lakes and rivers throughout Illinois. The sediment, caused by farmland and urban soil runoff, was blocking barges as well as harming the fish population.

From the California coast to North Carolina's Outer Banks, the nation's beach communities are marshaling their forces to oppose President Bush's push to slash federal funding for sand replenishment projects. In the White House's view, Washington can no longer afford to pump sand onto beaches that are doomed to erode again and again. But to some members of Congress -- Democrats and Republicans alike -- Bush's proposal to cut the money threatens to erode the economic base of coastal communities.

Efforts to preserve Laguna Beach's picturesque Heisler Park from coastal erosion remain on track, with city officials relieved that recent rains have not further imperiled the bluff top. Parts of the 78-year-old park, popular with tourists, joggers, picnickers and wedding parties, are slowly crumbling onto the beach below, north of Laguna's Main Beach.

Evidence of wind, erosion and other natural forces that helped shape Earth have been detected on Saturn's frigid moon Titan, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory announced Wednesday. The data was collected by NASA's Cassini spacecraft, which also found what appears to be a 930-mile-long river, possibly containing liquid methane.

The gradual erosion of Southern California's majestic coastal bluffs contribute a far greater amount of beach sand than previously thought, according to a university study that may arm environmentalists with a weapon in fighting oceanfront development.

RE "Fall's Hush Breaks Over Venice" [Oct. 27]: Your article brought back a flood of nostalgia for my time in Venice. From my vivid memory, the quintessential changing of the seasons: the wind erosion fences. Nothing symbolizes the transformation from the season of tourist infestation to the subdued somber grayness that you are now entering than those fences. I had the privilege and the good fortune to live there from my late 20s to my late 30s. Thank you so much for the poignant reminder of my well-spent youth!