Posted on April 21, 2025
Parts of proposal delayed; permits approved to replenish sand and restore riprap at San Clemente
Emergency sand replenishment and revetment repairs have been approved to protect the train tracks in San Clemente, a vital link in San Diego County’s only passenger and freight rail connection to the rest of the United States.
Transit officials, state regulators and local environmentalists are at odds over one of the proposed actions though, placing more boulders on the beach to create a rock wall that the Orange County Transportation Authority said is needed for the long-term safety of trains on the coastal route.
Landslides and the shifting railroad bed beneath the tracks just north of Camp Pendleton have stopped passenger service for months at a time in recent years. OCTA officials said this week the area remains unstable and urgent action is needed to prevent further interruptions.
No start date has been set for the work, which will require a suspension of passenger service through San Clemente for up to four weeks, OCTA spokesman Joel Zlotnik said.
“The availability of labor and materials plays into the timing of this,” Zlotnik said in an email Thursday. “In addition to the riprap, there will be 240,000 cubic yards of sand placed in Areas 1 and 2 and the timing of that also depends upon availability and additional permitting, which we are working through to try and expedite.”
OCTA requested emergency permits for work in four areas, but so far the California Coastal Commission has only approved the work for Areas 1 and 2 on the beach side of the tracks north of Mariposa Point. Rock riprap in those areas will only be replaced within the existing footprint.
The proposal for Area 3 includes building a new catchment wall and removing the remaining parts of the Mariposa pedestrian bridge destroyed by a landslide last year on the landward side of the tracks. That work may not qualify as an emergency and instead should be part of a regular coastal permit requested earlier that could be on the agenda for approval in May, the Coastal Commission said.
Area 4 is farther south, at the foot of the Cyprus Shore community near San Clemente State Beach. OCTA said sand replenishment and a new 1,200-foot revetment are needed there to halt beach erosion.
The Coastal Commission, in an April 10 letter to OCTA, said additional information is needed to show an emergency at Area 4. Instead, the commission said that project probably should go through the more lengthy process of obtaining a regular coastal development permit.
“If staff does concur that an emergency exists at some point in the future, it is critical that we have a clear proposal … and enough information to assess that the emergency action proposed is the minimum necessary to address the emergency,” said Karl Schwing, deputy director of the commission’s South Coast District, in the letter.
Rock revetments are opposed by environmentalists and the San Clemente group Save Our Beaches because the structures take up recreational space and accelerate beach erosion.
“We support the rehabilitation of any deteriorated rock revetments, if — and we cannot emphasize this enough — there is no increase in the footprint of rocks placed on the beach (including buried rock),” states an email from Save Our Beaches. “We strenuously oppose any expansion of the existing rock revetments.”
“Boulders break beaches!” the email states, adding that sand replenishment and retention should be priorities for stabilizing the beach.
OCTA’s response to the concerns was that the additional rock riprap will be used only “where absolutely necessary and designed to be functional, limited in scope, and potentially temporary.”
“By advancing this emergency work, we are helping to preserve a critical transportation link for Southern California, the region and beyond,” said OCTA Chair Doug Chaffee, also Orange County’s Fourth District supervisor, in a news release this week.
For years, the Coastal Commission generally has opposed rock riprap, revetments and other hard structures, such as seawalls, on the beach. It usually allows old ones to be repaired or replaced when necessary, and in some cases allows new ones to protect endangered structures, such as the railroad, from advancing erosion.
When hard structures are approved, the commission can attach a condition requiring their eventual removal. An example is the seawalls built below the railroad tracks in Del Mar that are to be removed after an alternate inland route is finished.
Also, when permits are issued, the commission often includes a mitigation requirement, such as improving public access to the beach or enhancing the native habitat.
In recent years, as advancing erosion threatens more coastal structures such as homes, parks, highways and the overall tourism economy, the commission has been more receptive to innovative ideas that could include the creative use of hardened coastal structures such as artificial reefs and headlands.
More than $313 million in state and federal grant funding has been secured for the San Clemente work. An additional $135 million included in the OCTA’s fiscal 2024-25 budget will enable completion of the projects, Zlotnik said.
