S1: Welcome , San Diego , it's Jade Hindman. The beauty of our beaches doesn't just happen by accident. People in coastal communities fight the challenges of climate change and beach erosion. Every day we'll talk about the important work being done. This is Midday Edition , connecting our communities through conversation. You know , it's hard to picture California without thinking about its beaches. I mean , it is core to the California dream , but due to ongoing impacts from our changing climate , California's coastline is slowly disappearing. Sea levels along its coast are expected to rise some three feet by the end of the century and possibly much higher , leaving coastal communities at risk of losing beaches and much more. As my next guest says , lines in the sand are meant to shift. In her new book , California Against the Sea. Visions of Our Vanishing Coastline , Rosanna Shaw takes a look at the past , present and uncertain future of California's 1200 mile coastline. As a reporter with the LA times , she also covers the environment. Rosanna , so good to have you on Midday Edition.
S2: Hi , Jade , it's so good to be here.
S1: So you begin your book in Imperial Beach in early 2019.
S2: And in the winter of 2018 , 2019 , there was just this incredible and incredible. It's not the right word , but just this massive confluence of events. It was a king tide. It was a high swell. And just all of these compounding factors led to the ocean breaking over the seawall , sweeping over the estuary and the roads. And it was just a really powerful glimpse into what will be the future for not just Imperial Beach , but so many other communities up and down the coast of California and in coastal communities around the world. And , you know , the mayor at the time searched. Dinah had teamed up with researchers at Scripps , and they've been playing with all these ways of possibly forecasting the potential of , you know , when the waves and the ocean might break over. And it was really cool. It was the first time that they had really nailed the forecast. And you can actually start to see swells coming in the Pacific Ocean with a little bit of a heads up. So there was enough time for the city to ring the alarm bell , so to speak , help residents actually pack sandbags and board up their homes and doors. And so there was like a preparation that was really remarkable. But again , it was just this really powerful window into what the rest of the future will look like for folks. And we so often think about sea level rise as this disaster that is far off into the future. And we think , you know , we look at the projections , we're projecting six feet , possibly seven feet of sea level rise by the end of the century for California. But the future is now. I mean , you can get more than a foot of sea level rise just by some of these compounding factors. And that's what scientists have been telling me. We can't wait until the sea rises X amount. Just throw in a couple other factors that are also increasing in frequency and we are very close to going over this threshold that will cause flooding in our communities today. Right.
S1: Right. And yet in your book , you call the ocean the silent hero in this burning world.
S2: And , you know , to put it super simply , warm water expands , right ? And cold water takes up less volume. So the more the ocean absorbs all our excess heat from our excess emissions , the ocean will swell and the ocean is rising and moving in at an increasing rate that is starting to chip away , carve away , and sometimes totally flood the communities and the built in landscapes as we know it today. Along , you know , our coast. It's hard to because there is still a disconnect between us on land and what's happening in the ocean. I think we respond more emotionally when we see wildfires , but heat waves and all of these warming catastrophes are also happening underwater. Another thing I think often are marine heat waves that's increasing in frequency as well underwater. And so again , as the ocean starts to boil , that is going to lead to pretty devastating consequences and disasters on land for all of us living on the coast.
S1:
S2: The state of California , all our agencies recently committed to preparing coastal communities for at least 3.5ft of sea level rise by 2050. But again , this idea that we shouldn't wait on. To all three feet of sea level rise to start acting , because right now , easily we can get a couple feet of sea level rise from a high tide , plus a storm , plus a high wave event. And just , you know , looking at the storms from this past winter , if you have back to back rain events like what we had , as the rivers start flooding and our roads start swelling with water and it's all trying to rush into the ocean , but the ocean is also pushing in and we have groundwater rising up. The water has nowhere to go. So I think we are built. Environments are have reached this capacity that any little thing over that capacity can cause flooding. So that's been a tricky thing kind of in the sea level rise world , especially for me as a climate communicator of sorts , you know , how do you help people see that a disaster that feels so far off into the future is actually something that is happening more and more frequently today. Wow.
S1: Wow. You know , California's coastal development took place during a very calm period for the Pacific Oceans atmosphere , and it led to a period of sea level suppression. Can you explain that a bit more and tell us how it is changing today ? Yeah.
S2: So the Pacific Decadal Oscillation , I know that sounds super wonky , but , you know , it's another climate like ocean atmosphere cycle. Kind of I kind of talk about it like El Nino. We know that with El Nino and La Nina , there are these cycles and ebbs and flows within a climate phenomenon. And so the Pacific Decadal Oscillation is something else like that. And one of the effects of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation in California is that the way the winds blow , they actually pull the warmer water offshore. And so the cooler water takes place along. It takes up space along the coast. And so during our peak development period in the post-World War II era , we actually had relatively calm sea level rise , and it felt quiet. There was not. The colder waters along the shoreline helped us think that the edge between land and sea was a lot further out than it actually should and could be. And so our population boomed. We built Pacific Coast Highway , we built entire communities along the coastline , and we started to fix this line in the sand that is now constantly being challenged by the rising ocean. And something that is truly humbling to me is that so many of us today still think of the coastline as static , right ? Like we think that this line in the sand , so to speak , is not supposed to move. But if you look at the processes of cliff erosion , which actually feeds the beach with fresh sand and , you know , our beaches are shrinking because they're unable to migrate inland naturally with the movement of the ocean. When we have Pacific Coast Highway or a seawall or a row of homes in the way of that migration , because we see the coast is static , we are creating these disasters that are in the way of the ocean. So even just the idea of a natural disaster is fascinating to me because we are the disaster. We have created this and we did this before we knew better. And now what we're living with today is this reality of , okay , the ocean is moving in , the coastline is supposed to move with it , and that means we're supposed to move with it as well. And what does that mean for all of the places that we have loved and cherished for years ? And what does that mean for all the critical infrastructure that we've built , that we rely on to live our day to day lives ? Yeah.
S1: You know , one fascinating aspect of your book is just how we thought about this changing coast over the years.
S2: Thank you for bringing that up. I mean , the fun thing about writing a book , and as I remove myself from the day to day breaking news cycles as a news reporter is to start asking these philosophical questions of like , why do we want to live on the beach ? Was that always a given , or is that something that was learned and going back through history ? I mean , there was a time when people were afraid of the Pacific Ocean , and I was reading these old stories of how we had to create the lifeguard and bring in surfers from Hawaii to show how surfing could be cool and really big wave spaces in the early 19 tens and 1920s. You know , that Kenny and Huntington and the folks who really started to build these Southern California seaside communities that we know today , really , it was a conscious marketing decision to help people reengage with the beach in a way that felt recreational. And then , you know , after the war , when Leisure and Recreation was something that we could enjoy again , just the idea of going to the beach and relaxing by the beach really just exploded as a cultural thing. In California , we have preserved and protected this coastline through a series of remarkable laws in the 1970s , most notably the California Coastal Act , where the voters of California. Made the philosophical stand that the beach should be protected for the broader public good. So , you know , in Los Angeles , where I am , we don't have a central park or a public square , but we have the beach , and it is such a just public gathering space , such a public good. And that is something that we truly cherish now. And it's so intrinsically part of the California identity. But yeah , it was so fascinating to find out that actually this was a learned love for the beach in California.
S1: You're listening to Kpbs Midday Edition. I'm Jade Hindman , I'm speaking with Los Angeles Times environment reporter Rosanna Shaw about her new book , California Against the Sea Visions for Our Vanishing Coastline. And Rosanna , you know , one key moment in history you just mentioned is the California Coastal Act of 1976. How did that transform California's relationship with the coast.
S2: Before the California Coastal Act ? There was this , you know , boom in development and a rush to live on the shore , build on the shore. And just within a decade or two , people were seeing this transformation of turning sleepy little beach surf shacks into bigger and bigger homes. There was also this push to build more power plants , nuclear power plants , especially along the coastline , and a grassroots community along the Sonoma Coast , started to fight back against a proposed nuclear facility in bodega Bay , and they successfully fought it off. But what ended up happening was the utility just took that project to a different part of the coast down the road with , you know , a more amenable city council , and the nuclear plant got built anyways. And so recognizing that , yeah , we actually need to take a philosophical stand to protect the entire coast , because just because we protect one slice of the coast does not mean the rest of the coast is protected. So there was this movement led by the people. It was a , you know , a ballot measure. And truly , the California Coastal Act made the philosophical stand in California that the beach cannot be owned by anyone , and therefore it belongs to everyone. And so , you see , along the entire coastline these signs pointing to staircases that take you between homes and down what seems like residential private roads that take you to the beach. And the way we have not built infrastructure and high rises along the coastline is truly remarkable and truly the legacy of the California Coastal Act. I mean , you look at the coastline along Miami or I'm from Massachusetts , and I think of all the privatized beaches in Massachusetts , and that's just not the case in California.
S1: That's so very interesting , because when I first moved to San Diego , I was wondering , why isn't there more development along the coastline ? Where are the hotels and the spas and and restaurants along the beach ? And that explains it. That explains a lot of it. So , you know , when it comes to climate change solutions , you say they generally fall into one of two categories mitigation or adaptation. And you argue that we need to focus more on solutions of adaptation at this point.
S2: And California talks a great talk. And , you know , is walking the walk on a lot of that. So when you hear people say , we're trying to go for zero emissions , net zero emissions electric vehicles , cleaner energy use like that is mitigation. Adaptation is acknowledging that the world as we know it is going to change , that there are consequences of climate change that we are going to have to face regardless , because of all of the emissions we've already put into the world , all of the emissions the ocean has already absorbed that even if we stopped emitting any carbon emissions tomorrow , there will still be impacts well into the next few decades. And what does it mean to face those realities ? And so when I hear people talk about taking climate action , those two categories tend to be conflated. And so part of my goal of just really diving into the specifics of sea level rise is to help people understand that this is a story about adaptation and what we need to do , regardless of how much we curb our emissions , which we absolutely need to do. We need to both mitigate and adapt , but we tend to conflate the two. And so with adaptation , I mean , the ocean has absorbed again more than 90% of the excess heat from our excess emissions since the Industrial Revolution. So even if we stopped all carbon emissions tomorrow , the ocean will continue to rise at the rate it's been rising for at least the next couple of decades. I think what we do today with carbon emissions will affect the sea level rise extremes that we're we're projecting and. Seeing as a possibility for the second half of the century , the end of the century. But regardless , we need to adapt in the mid-term. And that conversation has been really , really fraught because we know that the sea isn't rising three feet tomorrow and making these longer term changes that at a gut level we know will need to happen. But we know also it doesn't require any sacrifice. Today has been really hard. And so going from that short term to the long term and how to enter that transition period has been really the place that we've been stuck and the place where I think there's a lot of opportunity to prompt conversations , deep in conversations and try to guide people through this really , really complicated middle ground and middle process of building and reimagining our coastline towards this future that we inevitably have to face.
S1: I mean , this is a topic that can , quite frankly , be overwhelming , especially for us here in San Diego.
S2: And , I mean , I am inherently hopeful and optimistic. Otherwise I wouldn't be spending my time trying to help guide and deepen these conversations on how we want to live in better relationship with the water and with our planet. I think we're stuck in a lot of places. I think we are scared and anxious and rightfully so , on what it means to change the way the ways we live and how we want to live. But I also think we have a responsibility to think about what future we're moving into , and what future we're leaving behind for our kids and grandchildren. And that sense of responsibility has been super grounding for me. And the first step isn't that hard. My call to action when people ask me , what can I do , is to start having conversations , to start talking about what changes we might need to make going into the future , and to not be afraid to start exploring these options , and to start exploring what it means to change as our planet and our ocean are changing. That takes courage. We all have a responsibility to do to do so , and I have been very optimistic and just truly inspired by the conversations that I have been seeing in communities at the state level and around the country in terms of just our willingness to start looking this problem in its face and thinking about not only responding to it in an emotional and unproductive way , but responding to it in a way that really sees how much we are able to do together. And the fact that we still do have time to do something , if only we started now. I mean that all of that gives me hope.
S1: Rosanna Shaw is an environment reporter with the Los Angeles Times. Her new book is called California Against the Sea Visions for Our Vanishing Coastline. And Rosanna , thank you so much for joining us today.
S2: Thank you so much , Jade.
S1: Coming up , a project in the North County's biggest city aims to restore years of eroding coastline.
S3: So in Oceanside , we have a very long history of coastal erosion problems , which initiated with the construction of the Camp Pendleton boat Basin in the 40s.
S1: You're listening to Kpbs Midday Edition. Welcome back to Kpbs midday Edition. I'm Jade Hindman. California's beaches are facing a crisis. Research suggest up to 75% of its beaches could be gone by the end of the century. For our beaches to survive , San Diego's coastal communities will need to find new , innovative solutions to handle our rising seas. Oceanside has been receiving attention in recent months on its approach to the problem. Jamie Timberlake is Oceanside's coastal zone administrator. She's working with North County's largest city in the midst of a design competition to reimagine its beaches and coastline to ensure they survive into the future. Jamie , welcome to Midday Edition.
S3: Thank you. Thank you for having me.
S1: So glad you're here to break this down for us. So we just heard about some of the challenges facing California's coast generally , but I'm wondering if you can talk about what some of the biggest concerns for Oceanside's costar.
S3: So in Oceanside , we have a very long history of coastal erosion problems , which initiated with the construction of the Camp Pendleton boat basin in the 40s. So when that boat basin was constructed , it lessened the availability of sand that comes out of the Santa margarita River estuary. And then it also blocked sand from flowing down coast to us. And so we have this really big erosion issue that is really a coastal management problem. More so than anything else. It's it's something that we need to keep our eyes out on , and we need to continuously manage the amount of sediment that we have on our beaches. So it's that issue. And coupled with sea level rise , which we're all already experiencing here , and our beaches are eroded and showing that that issue.
S1: Which is , I would imagine , really impactful in Oceanside , since there are the beaches are so narrow and run so close to the city. Right.
S3: Right. And also the , the other interesting part about Oceanside is it is a very old city. So we've constructed up to the meet high water line in some areas. And and we did this so long ago before we really understood all that is at play here with coastal processes and and with sediment yields and how sediment is transported around our coast. So a lot of our city has already been built to that level , to all the way out to that mean high water line , as I said before.
S1: So , you know , Oceanside has been getting a lot of attention lately for this innovative project to tackle beach erosion. Tell me about that.
S3: So we launched the Re Beach Oceanside project. Well , the council approved the moving forward with this project in January 2023. And then we launched a design competition in June 2023 to bring in new ideas from around the world. Other communities are already dealing with this , and they're already seeing how their solutions are working on their beaches and their coastlines. And so we wanted to bring in those solutions that that we could utilize on our coast. So we launched this competition. We solicited proposals from 36 design teams or design firms from across the world , and we received input back from them and ended up with three design teams that are now competing to be part of the final project.
S1: So three designs you're considering.
S3: They've been asking questions like , who is Oceanside ? Who are we delivering this , these , these solutions to ? What's the future of Oceanside look like ? What are the objectives coming from these projects ? What kinds of beaches do we want to see ? Is it okay if we have some cobble on the beach ? These are the these are the questions , the big kind of high level questions that the design teams have been grappling with since we started this competition. So in the first iteration of the design competition , the teams brought forward high level concepts , the Dutch team , that's how we refer to them. Dale Taras and that team brought forward ideas like , can Oceanside entertain such things as a pier ? Could we have a new pier that would help with sediment retention , and that we could also use for improved beach access or improved water access for that matter , or even energy production ? So they threw out these types of ideas that were kind of big , big concepts to see if the community and the region were willing to entertain such ideas. There's other concepts being brought forward. The Scape team has looked at all of our public beaches and public parks along the beaches , and seeing if we can convert those areas into something that is more natural or was formerly a back beach area. And then we have the Australian team ICM they brought. Up for concepts that they've tried that are tried and true on the Gold Coast. Things like a sand bypass system. Can can we utilize a sand bypass system here in Oceanside ? Can we bring sand from one area to another with a pipeline ? They've also introduced us to things like artificial headlands and artificial reefs , and how those types of structures in the in the ocean and in , in the nearshore area could slow down sediment transport and actually widen our beach by just slowing down the sand once it hits our beaches. It likes to leave pretty fast. So speed bumps is what the team calls it. Yeah.
S4: Yeah.
S1: That's that's pretty cool. The speed bumps. So later today , Oceanside is having a public workshop to review these designs and speed bumps. Tell us more about what people can expect there.
S3: So our public workshop number two is happening on October 17th from 4 to 7 at the Oceanside Museum of Art. Everyone is welcome. Please RSVP if you haven't already and check out what we've been up to on Re Beach Dawg. That's our Design competition webpage. So at this workshop you're going to meet the design teams. They're coming back and they're coming back to Oceanside to showcase how they refine their designs. So the next iteration of the design competition will showcase how the public workshop number one , influence the new designs that are coming forward in public workshop number two , they'll also be talking. The design teams will also be talking about how their pilot project , their proposed pilot project will meet the objectives of the design competition. So some of these objectives are physical , environmental , financial. So we've asked the teams to look at their proposed project and give us an idea about how their project ranks and how they can publicly kind of evaluate their own project based on the design criteria that were that was set forth early on in the competition. And then the last thing that they're going to be talking about in this public workshop , number two , is how these pilot projects can be adapted to be located in different areas on on the coast. That's really important concept for everyone to understand that we are bringing forward a pilot project. It's a small rendition of what we're going to be hoping to bring forward through the rest of the community.
S1: All right. And of course , we'll have more details on our website at pbs.org. You're listening to Kpbs Midday Edition. I'm Jade Hindman. We're talking with Jamie Timberlake about Oceanside's effort to combat beach erosion.
S3: One thing they did is they hired a coastal zone administrator , which is my job , but it's a full time job that looks consistently at issues on the coast , and then how to go about either fixing those issues with a project or how to kind of organize around the maintenance or management or policies , even that direct improved management on the coastline. The city has taken more of a focus just in that effort. But alongside that , we are working with the Army Corps of Engineers who who does our navigation project. Every year they take sand from the mouth of the harbor to make sure that it's a navigable harbor , so that boats can go in and out of there without dragging on the sea floor. And so they take that sand and they place it on our beaches sometimes. The sand doesn't go as far as we'd like it to. And so the city of Oceanside is actively working with the Army Corps of Engineers to try and tweak that design or that implementation process so that we can get sand further south. The other things that we've done is we've renewed our sand Compatibility and Opportunistic Use program permits , which is referred to as the Scoop program. So what the Scoop program is , is we use these permits to evaluate the condition of sand that may come from , like the development of a basement or another or a wetland restoration project. We can evaluate the sand for compatibility with our beaches and then bring it from that upland development to our beaches. One additional item that is really exciting , that I'm going to be bringing this forward to council for approval in November. So in areas where there's sand , we're hoping to naturally create coastal dunes. So restore coastal dune habitat by using native seed and sand fencing , which will elevate the sand and elevate the beaches so that we don't have flooding on the back side. But it'll also bring in new habitat into areas that was that were formerly a long time ago , coastal dunes. So these are like there's a lot of things happening in Oceanside. Re beaches is one really big part of Oceanside's coastal efforts right now. But we're doing a lot of other things because we really need to.
S1: Yeah , it's interesting because , you know , I think a lot of people think of our beaches as being natural. But oftentimes beaches just don't happen , right ? Right.
S3: Especially that's true in Oceanside , where we have had decades and decades of management of of the coastline. And it all starts when we kind of , you know , begin developing in the coastal areas. It means that we have to manage those natural resources , and we need to be proactive about it. And I think it's a new a new era for Oceanside. We're really being way more proactive with our with maintaining , restoring and getting those natural resources back so that we can do things like create coastal dune habitat. Mm.
S1: Mm.
S3: That's their design life. And so we're asking the teams to develop a concept that that can be put on our coastline and help us for 20 to 30 years. That means that we're asking them to create a proposed project that can be adaptive to 2 to 3ft of sea level rise. So that's one major thing that that Oceanside is doing to try and help with the sea level rise issue. What that does is it'll give us some time to figure out how to deal with larger , higher sea level rise. And we really do need that time because it is is a difficult situation to try and navigate all the infrastructure that's built in the coastal areas that are subject to flooding already and will be worse flooded in the next eight years. So re beach is really important because it gives us that a little more buffer to be able to navigate and figure out what the next steps are for dealing with larger , higher sea level rise.
S4: You know.
S1: I mean , I feel like a big part of whether or not these programs and management techniques work really depends on coastal cities cooperating.
S3: So when Oceanside created this coastal management position or coastal administration , that meant that there were two coastal zone administrators in the county , one in Encinitas , where I came from before and and now one in Oceanside and now San Clemente , has also identified that there is a need here to focus more on coastal management. And so San Clemente has now hired a coastal administrator. So I think what's interesting is that there is a recognition that collaboration is needed , that there is no jurisdictional boundary out into the ocean , and that we do affect one another. And so it's been a great year of collaborating with neighbors to the north , neighbors to the south , and Oceanside , you know , feel really grateful to be part of it , because , you know , we've really been trying to be very inclusive with every beach project. And and I think everyone is very receptive to it because in the end , what we are helping with is trying to identify different solutions that other jurisdictions can also use on their coastline.
S4: All right.
S1: Jamie Timberlake is the coastal zone administrator for the City of Ocean. Signed. And Jamie , thank you very much for breaking down something that I think so many of us maybe don't think about often enough.
S3: Thank you very much for your time.
S1: Coming up , the host of NPR's Morning Edition , Steve Inskeep , joins us to talk about his new book about Abraham Lincoln's life called Differ.
S5: We Must Our Differences and Disagreements , the thing that upset us on some level , that is what democracy is.
S1: You're listening to Kpbs Midday Edition.
