Goleta Beach Restoration Project - November/December 2002

A small storm on a high tide of 5.9' attacked the beach front on 8 November 2002. The County hastily erected an orange plastic fence and attempted to fortify the cliff with a new sand berm. Because sand had not been stockpiled beforehand, the County was obliged to obtain the sand from the existing beach. Too little too late, because a month later, a major El Niño storm came in on an even higher tide and washed away the berm. Still no sand had been stockpiled, and once again the County stole sand from the existing beach. Each new berm was washed away completely by the next high tide, but the beach was not completely replaced. Thus the waves were able to roll directly into the berm and cliff without the beach intervening to dissipate the wave energy. Thus, beach was lost, cliff was lost, and the only winners were the beaches along the More Mesa coast. At one point, the County trucked in 7000 cubic yards of sand dredged from Santa Barbara Harbor. All that sand will eventually reach the harbor again, and it will just have to be dredged one more time.

Goleta Beach, 14 November 2002. View east of remnants of white sand berm in background in front of orange plastic fence, west end of beach. Brown sand berm in left center was removed from existing beach by backhoe. ©AGS2002.

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