By Don Gray Santa Monica
The misleading front page photograph, uncredited and pointing at an area nowhere near where the city is now proposing a breakwater expansion, is only the beginning of the misinformation in the Daily Press’ story (June 25, page 1) on the city’s latest efforts to increase tourism on the pier.
The photo’s arrow, hundreds of yards closer to shore than the actual breakwater, more accurately indicates where dredging would be required to remove the build up of sand that accumulates within breakwaters. This dredging, which according to the plan would be regularly required and performed at the city’s expense, was omitted from your article on this proposed offshore “transit mall” the city is contemplating.
There is a distinct possibility that such dredging may not even be allowed off Santa Monica shores, given the high contaminant levels found in soils analysis already completed and required by the project. Further, the proposal to dump our “toxic sand” farther up the coast may not be welcomed by Malibu residents.
Omitted from the article was the sheer scale of the projects. The city’s plan for the breakwater allows for the mooring of a dozen ships as long as 150 feet, designed to accommodate the larger Catalina Express ferries, with seating capacities greater than a 747. From the scant information provided by the city and Pier Restoration Commission, the elevated gangplank is targeting the same capacities.
Your article goes on to give the impression that an complete Environmental Impact Report, long delayed for the breakwater, would not be needed for an “elevated gangplank” extension to the pier. Given the environmental effects, both offshore — increased fuel and exhaust contaminants, elevated solid and human waste levels — and onshore, increased traffic, parking requirements, etc., a complete EIR will certainly be required for this imaginative construct.
Included in your account, however, was the headlined information that the Santa Monica Fire Department could use the proposed elevated gangplank “to safely evacuate people in case of an emergency,” and that “many officials believe” the current escape hatch is “inadequate.” Believe is an especially appropriate choice of words, given that no one contacted could ever remember an “evacuation” similar to what the city is imagining.
There is a reason that the Army Corps of Engineers has recently canceled proposed breakwaters faced with the threat of lawsuits, and why an organization such as the Surfrider Foundation has a strict policy of not supporting “the installation of stabilization... structures along the coastline.” Developments like the proposed breakwater necessarily come with long term detrimental effects to our local environment.
Which would ultimately result in our killing the goose that lays our golden eggs. The involvement of the Daily Press in this whole matter is of concern, as well. To have the public (via your “Q-Line”) weighing in on a matter in which so little information — and to this point misleading information, to boot — borders on unconscionable. By asking residents to “pick our poison” at this stage, you do nothing more than abet one version or another of a project that residents may not want, and more important, given the size of our city’s budget and current popularity of our pier, certainly don’t need.
In the face of the tremendous growth in development in Santa Monica over the last decade, and now the apparent intent of the city to go offshore with the same zeal, the expanded “escape hatch” of the proposed aquatic “transit mall” may be the only feature of this whole mess that has any appeal to our long-suffering residents: a mass evacuation is looking better all the time.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on June 30, 2005. Read the original PDF.