Sand Berms Created at Leadbetter Beach
By the City of Santa Barbara
Sand berms are going up at Leadbetter Beach and East Beach at Mission Creek starting today.
These temporary berms are erected before the winter storm season to protect property and access. Previous storms have flooded the harbor business area and caused significant damage.
11 Comments
-
2
-
-
Dec 07, 2022 08:25 AMI'll guess this is not a depiction of the finished berm. If it is, a big storm will eat them up and spit them back into the ocean faster than a lobster can scream before entering boiling water.
-
1
-
-
Dec 07, 2022 09:25 AMthe berms are mainly for the SBYC and again on the west side of mission creek before you hit the wharf. those two can help the structures around it, but any other berm will just be eaten up like Doulie noted. Ledbetter isn't a beach, it's a man made disaster waiting to happen again. The actual shoreline is below the SBCC cliffs...at the lower parking lots.
-
1
-
-
Dec 07, 2022 09:52 AMZERO - that's interesting about Ledbetter, I never knew that! Be interesting to see what it used to look like!
-
1
-
-
Dec 07, 2022 07:43 PMSac, find some old photos of the shoreline there—it’s really interesting. There used to be a big rock formation called Castle Rock that was dynamited in 1931 and the material was to build part of the breakwater. The whole shoreline there is altered from its “original” state.
-
-
3
-
Dec 07, 2022 09:51 AMThe only structures “threatened” are the Yacht Club which is built on stilts and would prob survive.
So why do such a long berm?
Guess it’s ok to meddle with nature when it suits humans? But which humans get to choose which shorelines they interfere with?
What happened to letting nature & the planet be natural.
Why do humans justify meddling?
-
2
-
-
Dec 07, 2022 11:29 AMSACJON - Check out the book "Santa Barbara Then & Now" for a very detailed look at the changes before and after the breakwater was built.
-
1
-
-
Dec 07, 2022 12:14 PMEL BARBARENO - thanks for the tip, will check it out!
-
-
-
Dec 07, 2022 12:32 PMIt’s basically all about the yacht club. Anything else sitting there and the Coastal commission would probably step in and stop it. It’s not fair it’s lame.
-
-
-
Dec 07, 2022 05:47 PMBASIC - You make an interesting point. Who is responsible to protect the yacht club from the ocean waters? If the city was responsible, I'll guess the stone/concrete wall that extends from the marina area to the sand spit would have included the land in front of the yacht club. Is the yacht club building privately owned? Who is paying for the berms?
-
1
-
-
Dec 08, 2022 06:41 PMI guess you missed the second picture. SBYC is on stilts, the businesses in the harbor are at huge risk.
-
-
-
Dec 08, 2022 03:46 PMFrom my Geology class in 1980 we learned the SB breakwater is a classic engineering failure not understanding natural sand flows & currents. It's built at an angle that creates a wrap-around sand bar that eventually closes off the harbor the breakwater was intended to create. Photos are found in several geology textbooks.