Surfer’s Point has always been an iconic beach for the residents of Ventura County, but now it is making its mark on the world by being a working example of managed retreat. From 1992 to 1997
the current bike path on this piece of the coastline was being swallowed away by rising sea level, and the emergency mitigation methods such as rusty fences and concrete barriers were making this beach look more like a messy construction project.
It was obvious that something needed to be done, and the concept of the Surfer’s Point Managed Shoreline Retreat Project was created in 1995.
Managed retreat is complicated from an anthropogenic standpoint however because as surfers, bikers, and environmentalists stood behind the plan, the Ventura County Fairgrounds and affected stakeholders were not as on board. After a ten year deliberation, a plan was agreed upon to start the gradual push-back from the shore. Phase one of the project began in 2010 and was completed by 2013 with the key changes being: a condensed parking lot, a new bike path where the parking lot used to be, a new natural cobble berm instead of unnatural coastal armoring, and newly created sand dunes made from sand that was transported off of beaches that had issues with onshore winds generating excess sand. Phase one has created a 70 foot buffer zone between any infrastructure and the shoreline, giving this area more time to prepare for imminent sea level rise. Phase two is currently underway but experiencing drawbacks since the second part of the plan includes uprooting most of the fairgrounds parking lot. This phase requires a lot of legal negotiation and is not going to go over well without a solid new plan for citizens to get to the fairgrounds easily. The new sand dune area is expected to flourish naturally with only monitoring efforts needed by scientists to track its growth. This project is a prime example that a grassroots level team (in this case the Ventura chapter of the Surfrider Foundation) has the power to convince major stakeholders and government agencies to fund efforts to restore our natural environments.
Statistics and images 1 & 2 gathered from: https://www.climate.gov/news-features/climate-case-studies/restoring-surfers-point
