San Francisco Fights Erosion as Coastal Cities Watch Closely

Excerpt from an article in

The New York Times

Sunday, March 25, 2012

San Francisco Fights Erosion as Coastal Cities Watch Closely

By FELICITY BARRINGER

SAN FRANCISCO — The explosive waves of Ocean Beach, a 3.5-mile stretch separating the city from the gray edge of the Pacific Ocean, have long been a draw for tourists, local families and an international tribe of surfers.

But every few years, stormy surf driven by the weather pattern known as El Niño grinds away at a thinning section of beach, pulling sand out to sea. Some comes back, but two years ago, bluffs collapsed and massive amounts of sand disappeared for good.

Holding back the sea here seems as impossible as holding back the fog. But planners see Ocean Beach as a top priority in a long roster of Bay Area sites threatened by inundation because of what lies on its landward side: the Great Highway, a $220 million wastewater treatment plant and a 14-foot-wide underground pipe that keeps sewage-tainted storm water away from the ocean.

The question facing at least eight local, state and federal agencies boils down to this: With California officials expectingclimate change to raise sea levels here by 14 inches by 2050, should herculean efforts be made to preserve the beach, the pipe and the plant, or should the community simply bow to nature?

“We are in some ways the tip of the spear for this issue,” said Benjamin Grant, a city planner who is leading a study of the problem for the nonprofit San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association, or SPUR.

Mr. Grant describes the beach’s south end as “an erosion hot spot.” But, he said, all coastal communities will have to grapple with rising seas.