The Dana Strands Seawall

ML: Well, now they come in with this development proposal to build 75 luxury homes above the beach, and then another 50 in the bowl area--over which we have no complaint. We don't even have a problem that they want to build on the Strand beach area. But with the way they configured the row of homes next to the beach, they need to shore up this existing revetment or seawall.

CN: Right now the old revetment that's made of rip rap (big boulders) down there, and it's kind of a piece of junk. The bluffs have been eroding over the riprap and in some places it's actually completely buried by the bluff. The bluff has sloughed over it. I imagine it's affording some sort of (landslide or erosion) protection to the land, but it's not really doing much.

ML: Well, you see it at the north end and then it tapers down to next to nothing at the south end. And in the summer, when the sand comes in, what you can see becomes even less.

ML: They need to build the whole thing uniform up to a height of 20 feet. The rock thickness will be 6 feet thick. It would be riprap like the harbor jetty at Dana Point. The developer will point out that it's six-feet thick. But when you take it from the toe to the inland section and go back, it's 30 feet. We've used this analogy to put the height in perspective: if you were surfing at Doheny, and you look up at the revetment that borders it. (ed's note, the seawall at Doheny's Boneyards) What you see of that revetment at low tide is not as big as this one.

Killer Dana. The Harbor Wall Here is as big as the one proposed for Strands.

CN: About the size of the outside jetty at Dana Point Harbor for scale.

CN: The way we see it, they want to do that so they can put houses right there on the beach. That's the issue we have. We don't want this seawall on the beach. It's bad for the beach.

The Dana Point Harbor, Doheny to the South. Headlands and Strands to the North.

MC: Basically, what they're trying to do is put a Dana Point Harbor breakwater on the beach at Strands.