ENCINITAS – The city of Encinitas will continue to monitor activity at Beacon’s Beach with the Scripps Institute of Oceanography following a minor incident. in May on the famous beach of Leucadia.
The Encinitas Planning Commission (commissioner Steve Dalton absent) on June 29 unanimously approved Scripps ’request to install temporary and permanent monitoring equipment at Beacon’s to measure seismic activity on the rock and the landslide.
Equipment includes electrical drains and park drainage equipment and fittings; deep/shallow cameras in parking lots and on rocks; shallow observations on the rock and along the beach.
Three spaces in the park will be used for the installation of shallow, excavation and excavation equipment for the proposed project.
“I don’t think this city can miss safety monitoring in this matter,” said Commissioner Susan Sherod, noting the death toll at Leucadia’s Grandview Beach in 2019. “Now, the fortunately, no lives were lost at Beacon’s, but ours. it is impossible to predict whether the earth will move or not unless we observe it. ”
City engineers began investigating the landslide with Scripps’ seismic monitoring equipment on May 2, the day of the fall, a move that people still question.
City staff is currently pursuing a Coastal Emergency Permit through the California Coastal Commission for the temporary closure of the park and road. public access, and the installation of inclinometer sensors (sensor measurement slope displacements) needed to record current activity.
“The emergency work needs to be out there to make sure we can maintain public access as soon as possible,” Planning Manager Anna Colamussi told commissioners of the event in May.
Scripps responded quickly thanks to ongoing marine monitoring assistance approved and funded through Council Bill 66 by 2021.
In AB 66, Scripps Institution of Oceanography is authorized to study flats and erosion from Black’s Beach to Carlsbad until 2025. (A report with regulatory recommendations and an early warning is expected by March 15 the same year.)
“I want my way back; I want to be behind Beacon, “Commissioner Robert Prendergast said at the special meeting on June 29, adding that he was” very excited that Scripps is part of this process. “
The public questioned the institute’s permission to carry out the work, as well as the overall legality of closing a public beach area.
Matthew Gordon, a resident south of Beacon’s Beach, called on the commission to review the California Coast Guard Act and marine development permits. Gordon believes completed work should be considered a liability under the law.
“There can’t be any approval from the Planning Commission for Scripps’ [Marine Development Permit] because the work was completed and monitoring started in the last few weeks, ”Gordon said, calling on members immediately stopped monitoring work associated with Beacon’s Beach. “No one knows if that job was done well according to the plans and what was done on the bluffs.”
In a five-page letter to the California Coastal Commission and shared with the Planning Commission, Chandra Slaven, a planning expert and coastal land use consultant, said she was given does not eat false public announcements that landslides are dangerous and allow unauthorized activities on the surface. the bluff.
Slaven believes landslide monitoring activities and general closure of the state beach violate the state Constitution and the Coastal Code. He said the city missed its time to file for a proper permit and should move to negotiate a long -term solution for saving public spaces in Beacon’s Beach or Leucadia State Beach.
“We cannot continue to revisit this issue every year,” Slaven wrote. “It’s time for a long -term planned solution that includes all members of the public who are familiar with Beacon’s Beach.”
