CD: Let's be clear on this. The Coastal Act says you can't build a seawall to protect a new structure. So they're saying that the seawall is to actually protect an existing structure that really no longer exists.

MC: The paths are still there from the trailer park and the clubhouse is still there, so they claim it's an existing structure and that it's a safety hazard for people on the beach. Basically that's the justification for getting the revetment permit.

CN: The only thing they could claim is that they need to protect the old clubhouse and trailer park -- all of which they plan to tear down anyway. This is why you should have these setbacks on the beach.

MC: Well the developer retained Scott Jenkin, a coastal geologist (ed's note: Jenkins is also a former director of Surfrider). What he said was, that without this revetment, a massive bluff failure could occur that would dump a bunch of sediment and kill all the offshore kelp beds. Now man needs to protect nature from itself.

ML: The argument is that this has to be considered the site of an ancient landslide. But ancient is the key because this land isn't mapped to have moved like this in 11,000 years.

MC: We had some professors from Scripps who just laughed at the kelp argument. They said the predictive modeling is weak, and the catastrophic event they're talking about would have to be the Mother of All El Ninos.

CD: So how big is the dig that they would do for this? How much grading with big trucks?