[HN Gopher] The revival of the beach in twentieth-century Los An...
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The revival of the beach in twentieth-century Los Angeles
Author : Thevet
Score : 51 points
Date : 2024-10-09 19:22 UTC (3 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bbc.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bbc.com)
| hackernewds wrote:
| > As the plants grow, they capture windblown sand beneath their
| branches and leaves, over time creating natural sand dune
| barriers that protect against coastal erosion. The project was
| experimental, Ford explains, and so there wasn't any quantifiable
| success criteria that was set. But in Ford's view, it's been a
| resounding success. The dunes have already reached between one
| and three feet tall (30 to 90cm).
|
| The whole article is aspirational fluff and projects such as
| these prevent us from forwarding solutions, that would rather
| work, versus some heartwarming stories. In this case, about how
| snowy plovers returned randomly with a whole _3 eggs_ , and how
| trees have created _one foot dunes_.
|
| California has a serious problem with non-profits and
| foundations, successfully pulling on well-meaning and loaded
| people's hearts and wallet strings
| pests wrote:
| Not all writing is about just giving the facts.
|
| I thought this was an interesting piece on the mistakes of our
| past, some education on beach and sand dunes formation, and a
| lovely journey through a topic I had no knowledge of.
|
| Why be so dismissive?
|
| The sand dunes formed over just 9 years. Imagine how much
| bigger they will be in 20, 50, or even 100 years. Why be so
| short sighted?
|
| You also selectively cut off part of the quote about the eggs.
| That was in the first year, it goes on..
|
| "Since then, plovers have returned to the restoration area to
| nest. Native plant species that had not been planted by The Bay
| Foundation appeared too, such as pink sand verbena. And dune
| beetles - which provide food for foraging birds, and which had
| not been observed in baseline surveys prior to restoration -
| also arrived."
|
| Not everything happens instantly. We're lucky to live in a time
| of rapid innovation. Some things just take time.
| oldgradstudent wrote:
| It seems reasonable to apply to NGOs the same skepticism you
| would apply to anyone else trying to sell you something.
|
| If the same level of fluff was written by a crypto startup,
| would you accept it at face value?
| addicted wrote:
| There's a 120 page report with all sorts of detailed analysis
| reviewing 5 years of the project linked in the article.
|
| If this is genuinely your concern you should read that before
| deciding whether they are trying to rip anyone off.
|
| Coming to the conclusion that this is not a worthy effort
| because you read a feel good general news piece and it only
| included feel good general news seems silly at best.
| zeitgeistcowboy wrote:
| I lived there between 2004 and 2023 and used to walk along the
| perimeter of the protected dunes. I didn't know it was an
| intentional engineering. I thought it was just natural dunes
| that were protected. They are really beautiful and you get a
| sense that there's a lot of life going on. I always wondered
| why Santa Monica's beaches were so barren otherwise compared to
| other beaches on both the West and East coasts. Good read!
| 7952 wrote:
| How does this preclude other solutions?
| everybodyknows wrote:
| In theory it doesn't, but in practice there's limited public
| attention, and money. The interviewee is obviously pushing
| his own particular mitigation project, and the BBC reporter
| has uncritically accepted it. In much of San Diego County,
| there never were dunes but rather sandy bluffs dropping to a
| beach, wide or narrow depending upon exposure, bluff geology,
| and proximity to river outflow.
| rsynnott wrote:
| What would you suggest? Like it's not a magic bullet, the
| plover won't be parting the oceans like King Canute or
| anything, but, er, yes, a living beach is more resistant to
| coastal erosion than a desert; that's fairly uncontroversial, I
| thought?
| strken wrote:
| I don't know about Californian beaches, but I know in Australia
| there's been a significant attempt to replant native grasses in
| erosion zones and maintain the dunes. The article describes
| this.
|
| What do you mean by "solutions that would work"? The solutions
| to coastal erosion are many, but one that sometimes works is
| having dunes held together by plants with sturdy root systems.
| nox101 wrote:
| I thought this was going to be about the fact that the beaches in
| California seem much less crowded than they used to be.
| renewiltord wrote:
| Fascinating. I had no idea. It's crazy how, once a thing is done,
| those who come after assume it was always this way. I believed it
| always looked like this. Crazy.
| throwup238 wrote:
| A significant fraction of the California coastline is engineered
| like this. In San Diego all the way up through Carlsbad and
| Oceanside they dredge up sand every few decades and dump it on
| the beach to replenish the sand and keep the tourism dollars
| flowing.
|
| https://www.sandag.org/projects-and-programs/environment/sho...
| bobthepanda wrote:
| This is pretty common with iconic beaches. Waikiki in Honolulu
| is also not natural, and in fact uses sand from southern
| California.
| lysace wrote:
| I don't see how this is problematic if it works. And it does
| seem to work. Are humans not allowed to alter nature? We have
| been doing that for a very very long time.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| The problem with artificial beaches is that they erode away
| pretty quickly and need replenishing at great expense,
| since there's no natural way to sustain that. Hence the
| article
| Keysh wrote:
| The main beaches for tourists in the Canary Islands (on
| Tenerife and Gran Canaria, at least) were built with sand
| imported from the Sahara. (There are black volcanic sand
| beaches there naturally, but those were thought to be
| unappealing to tourists -- at least back in the 1960s, when
| the tourism industry was starting up.)
| everybodyknows wrote:
| This is largely necessary in San Diego County because a major
| source of sand replenishment has been suppressed: natural
| erosion of the soft sand bluffs that back the beaches. At the
| top of every accessible bluff there is a phalanx of small
| palaces, maintained -- though often left unoccupied -- by an
| ever-growing class of billionaires, and now protected from
| nature by steel-reinforced concrete seawalls built upon
| nominally public property below.
|
| The dredging projects are of course not paid for by the private
| owners whose seawalls necessitate them, but by the public.
|
| The walls themselves, while nearly invisible to palace
| occupants, present as egregious eyesores to the ordinary
| citizen trying to enjoy what remains of the beachfront below:
|
| https://duckduckgo.com/?q=solana+beach++seawall&t=ipad&iar=i...
| dylan604 wrote:
| You make it sound like it's just bare concrete walls. The
| pics in your link show they've at least attempted to make
| them look like sandstone that blends and fits much more than
| your description.
| Melting_Harps wrote:
| > You make it sound like it's just bare concrete walls. The
| pics in your link show they've at least attempted to make
| them look like sandstone that blends and fits much more
| than your description.
|
| Unless you're a local you won't understand, there are
| subtle things images cannot show accurately; for example
| just north of Oceanisde in what is technically S. Orange
| County exists a surfing hot-spot, for locals and tourists
| alike and is host to many surf competitions: but, because
| Nixon had his 'White House of the West' the area was
| covered with those spiky plants to deter riffraff like
| 'hippy surfers' or 'beatniks' from enjoying what he deemed
| 'his' coastline. It's totally invasive plant and now those
| spikes are all over the place and you can be terribly
| injured (I got an infection on my foot once when I stepped
| on one in an open wound from surfing low tide) just walking
| down the beach without sandals.
|
| Lets just say they leave there mark, and it's one we all
| wished we could do away with, including places like
| Billionaires Bluff.
|
| Again, its Californian culture for everyone (local or
| otherwise) to enjoy the coastline entire industries are
| built around this and it's a total disservice to do
| otherwise; but it must be said that it's usually outsiders
| that try to carve their own enclave solely for themselves
| and these are the results--that Indian billionaire comes to
| mind.
| ctrlp wrote:
| > The foundation knew that if they could stop the beach grooming
| and bring back native communities of plants to the area, sand
| dunes would reappear, providing a natural buffer against erosion.
|
| This is all very nice but I can attest that if the beaches
| weren't regularly "groomed" they would be filthy and trashed. The
| amount of litter left by inconsiderate beachgoers or washed up
| onshore is a legit problem.
|
| I've walked along SM beach hundreds of times in recent years and
| these new cordoned off dunes attract the homeless who camp and
| defecate there. I wouldn't walk barefoot in that sand for love or
| money. What would be nice is if, in conjunction with dune
| restoration, the City could get it together to remove the
| vagrants and fine the litterers. Not holding my breath for that.
| everybodyknows wrote:
| > dunes attract the homeless
|
| Interesting to contrast with Cardiff, where the dune strip is
| narrow and exposed to view. No homeless, but occasional rip-rap
| or sand supplementation -- contrary to the article, the dune
| topography does not appear self-sustaining.
|
| On the positive side, the snowy plover are about the cutest
| seabird you'll ever find:
| https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Snowy_Plover/overview
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