Councilmembers Unwilling To Admit City Mistakes + Resistance To Green Engineering Doomed Natural Bluffs, Cost More And Needn't And Shouldn't Be Repeated <p><small>by Joe Geever * <p><small>Mr. Geever is the former California Water Policy Manager for Surfrider Foundation. He is now an independent environmental consultant, working with communities and non-profits on policy issues to protect our ocean, beaches and coast and advocated the use of biotechnical methods to stabilize and protect LB's bluffs.

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Opinion

Councilmembers Unwilling To Admit City Mistakes + Resistance To Green Engineering Doomed Natural Bluffs, Cost More And Needn't And Shouldn't Be Repeated

by Joe Geever *

Mr. Geever is the former California Water Policy Manager for Surfrider Foundation. He is now an independent environmental consultant, working with communities and non-profits on policy issues to protect our ocean, beaches and coast and advocated the use of biotechnical methods to stabilize and protect LB's bluffs.

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(Dec. 18, 2014) -- Unfortunately, the City Council voted to finish the shotcrete on our bluffs. [LBREPORT.com coverage here.] Obviously, we're extremely disappointed. But we knew from the beginning that, even though shotcrete was a terrible idea that will stain the coast for generations to come, it is incredibly hard to get politicians to admit mistakes and reverse course.

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But we can walk away knowing we did the right thing -- and we did our best. Last spring, we didn't expect City Council to stop the project to review alternatives. They did that only because of your support, and because the mistake was so glaringly ugly.

But the mistake was so much more than ugly. I believe the City violated State and local laws (without a remedy due to costs and inexplicably missing documents) that protect these precious natural landforms, and all the rare plants and animals that survive in that unique and vanishing habitat. As the City Council said, beauty is in the eye of the beholder and we can all differ on that question. But imitating nature with painted concrete is not the same as restoring nature itself -- no matter how nice anyone thinks it looks.

And restoring nature doesn't mean putting people and property at risk. Engineers are now working with scientists to take advantage of "ecosystem services" -- that is, letting nature do the work of concrete and steel. We see these principles in projects to restore rivers and watersheds to natural conditions, reversing decades of environmental destruction -- but doing it in a way that still provides flood protection. And we've seen the same thing on numerous coastal bluffs elsewhere -- natural slopes covered in native vegetation adapted to this harsh environment will stabilize bluffs.

And finally, this "green infrastructure" principle is not expensive. It turns out restoring the bluffs would have been a small fraction of the cost of the shotcrete.

So we were right about the law and policy, the science, the engineering and the costs. But we understand why the vote went the way it did. It would take extremely unusual political fortitude to admit mistakes and fix them. And we understand why some people living in the area opposed our ideas. Nobody likes living around construction -- even when it's important. And that construction had gone on too long and had already gone over budget, like every Tidelands project in the City.

Our hope now is that the City will NEVER do this again. And because we stuck together, did our homework and made a strong argument -- we hope that is the legacy of this effort.

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