Oceanographer says surf damage claims about Foothill South TR false

Construction of the last leg of the Foothill South Toll Road (CA241) to join the I-5 in San Onofre California will have no discernible effects on the famous surf beach nearby, a famous oceanography has concluded. Richard J Seymour, a specialist in coastal oceanography at the Scripps oceanographic institution was employed to do an independent peer review of claims the tollroad would be a threat to the surf beach known as the Trestles after a railroad line that runs nearby on elevated wooden piers.

Seymour reviewed eleven claims of surf damage and found they were full of scientific mistakes, erroneous assumptions, misinterpretations and baseless theories.

Seymour’s findings included:

- the characteristic surf at the Trestles beach is the product not of cobbles but of boulder sized rocks that are stable over time

- possible sediment from the creek along the toll road is a non-issue since changes to the beach will be dominated by the local wave regime

- sediment supplies will be driven by alongshore currents

- any creek inputs of sand will be negligible when compared to the volatility of the beach driven by ocean events

- delivery of cobbles to the shoreline will not be altered to a detectable degree given the highly episodic nature of cobble movement

- fine sediment movement has no effect on cobbles or boulders

- the scaremongers deploying pseudoscience were about equally divided between two contradictory theories of damage

- the pseudoscience claims of damage processes was not supported by references cited

- the characteristic waves of the Trestles beach are the result of a reef hundreds of feet offshore not materials close to the shore

"The theory predicting damage contained two major contentions: that more fine sediment would enter San Mateo Creek thus decreasing or eliminating the transport of cobbles towards the ocean and that this same fine sediment once it reached the ocean would increase the seaward transport of cobbles.

"The first prediction was shown by others to be totally false, based upon well-recognized authorities in stream flows. The second was unsupported by any of the five papers put forth to defend it, because all of these papers dealt with cobble/sediment interactions in wave uprush on the relatively steep face of beaches – a totally different environment from a surfing reef hundreds of feet offshore under shoaling and breaking waves."

"Based upon a careful review of all the pertinent documents presented, I found that the (construction of the toll road) would result in no detrimental effects to the surfing in the Trestles area. My examination of the documents did not result in any serious unanswered questions," Seymour concluded.

By our measurement of satellite pictures using gmap-pedometer the closest the planned tollroad comes to the shore is 720m (2365ft) whereas the active railroad line is only 142m (465ft) from the shore line at the same point.

4.1km (2.5 miles) along the beach is the San Onofre nuclear power plant - located right on the shoreline.

see http://www.thetollroads.com/home/news_press_july_08d.htm

The toll road has received all needed permits from federal and state authorities, except from a radicalized California Coastal Commission. The toller is asking the federal government which has ultimate jurisdiction over coastal issues to override the state commission's veto.

TOLLROADSnews 2008-07-31