Every sunny holiday weekend Montara and every other beach town on our coastal stretch gets descended upon by thousands of visitors. These visitors bring with them much welcomed cash that they spend at our local businesses.

This Memorial Day Weekend was no exception and also as usual many of these visitors left the containers, wrappers, cans, bottles, plastic and foil packaging of their beach picnics right there on the beach, too lazy to use the trash cans in the parking lots, too lazy to pack it out or take it home to dispose of. I collected FIVE full garbage bags of trash off of Montara Beach at the end of Monday, I know Surfer Beach in Princeton also gets hit hard every Holiday with trash blowing down the road and into the Ocean (there is no official garbage collection on any of the beaches, it’s up to individuals to take matters into their own hands before the tide pulls it into the ocean). The stadium mentality of ‘someone else will pick it up’ is rampant it seems.

I appreciate that someone has to pay for trash can installation and trash collection but what can local business do to help out? It would be great if at these busy Holiday times shops and garages put up posters urging visitors to use the trash cans or better still pack their trash and take it home off the coast. It would be cheap to do, hell, I would gladly design a poster for that very purpose, gratis.

Also how about a large permanent sign just outside of HMB town on highway 92 urging all visitors to please respect the beauty and health of the coast by being litter aware. I know the coast is not alone in having litter problems, but it really breaks my heart to see our beautiful local beaches defiled by ignorant litter bugs who at the end of the day leave their crap on our doorstep and go back home to the Valley or City until the next sunny day.

Kevin

Don’t forget used, rolled-up diapers—my personal favorite litter item!

I am so grateful to the person or persons who put garbage cans at Surfer’s Beach.  Do I recall correctly that a local citizen started up that program at his own expense?  It’s really nice to see that some people are using them.

Although I love to see “Pack Your Trash” stickers and signs at the beach, I think most litterbugs don’t care enough about cleanliness or the environment to pay attention.

While driving on 92 east heading out of town earlier this week, I was behind a car with a driver and back seat passenger that threw stuff out of the window a total of 14 times. I COUNTED! We passed the $1000 fine for littering sign, and then passed two police cars that were directing traffic for a funeral. The parties in the car looked at the police cars and laughed.

I was disgusted and irritated at this whole thing…where do these people come from? I took the plate number but what can I do?

-GraceAnn

Lets not forget the buried tissue and the dog poo left on the beach in a plastic bag.

Kevin

I don’t remember for sure how far the private citizen went with the Surfer’s Beach trash issue, but the cans which are there now are from Seacoast Disposal at the request of the Granada Sanitary District Board.

(Most people consider Surfer’s Beach to be in El Granada, not Princeton, although it’s actually within the city limits of Half Moon Bay.)

I think the magic word here is apathy. If you want to get a sense of the public’s trash mindset, ask Allied Waste (formerly BFI) why they have had to mix the recycle materials and the trash together from the barrels along Main Street. According to them, it’s because no one cares enough anymore to separate the trash. Consumers are throwing the recyclable material in the trash bin, and the trash in the recycle bin.

Yes I know this happens, but hey, it’s better than throwing it on the street or the beach. Do you think the offenders drop trash on the street they live on? I think not.

Kevin said: :Yes I know this happens, but hey, it’s better than throwing it on the street or the beach. Do you think the offenders drop trash on the street they live on? I think not.”

Actually, it wouldn’t surprise me if they did. All I was getting at was that whatever measures had been taken to instill some measure of compliance in the past, these are no longer working. It could be the elevated stress levels, it could be that the now old trash and recycle bins are looking so decrepit that it isn’t worth their time to separate their trash anymore. Who knows?

Let’s not forget to thank our coastside Heroes who pick up trash Every Day.  I live in Moss Beach and Tish and Del Williams are TOPS in my book.  We have clean roads every day in Moss Beach thanks to them…

If our coastal community goal is eco-tourism, Given our extremely limited infrastructure, then we either need to start thinking of how to improve our infrastructure OR go out and clean parking areas, clean beaches, porta potties, and pick up trash.

We all need to consider electing officials that actively seek to improve our infrastructure (roads, water, sewer, parks, schools, and services) for ourselves AND the tourists….but, failing that, get a trash can and start picking..

Wow.  Terry Gossett can make <u>everything</u> about building more infrastructure, including blaming tourists leaving trash on the beach on having elected officials who aren’t willing to overbuild infrastructure.  (We’ll just ignore the fact that the supposedly “no growth” Granada Sanitary District board arranged for trash cans around Surfer’s Beach…)

What is meant by “our” or “community” (the latter written in a singular form) in Terry Gossett’s statement about ecotourism being a goal? What does “improve” mean. Without knowing the assumptions underlying such basic terms, there can be no meaningful discussion.

Carl May

Hey Carl

We can both lessen thee angst for this thread by just the two of us having a cup of coffee.  Give me a call anytime .  I’m in the phone book, Moss Beach.

But, Carl, in answering your question…what I was citing was what was one of the stated goals of the HMB Chamber of Commerce for our community.. and as reflected in the HMB Review… to seek out and support eco-tourism.

I tend to view all of us on the San Mateo coast as “neighbors”.  The sooner we all realize that, I believe, the sooner we will be able to comunicate and realize our common goals.  I see little merit in fiefdoms, enclaves, and balkanization of our limited and precious coastside.  Let’s work together.

The San Mateo coast is a unique treasure, and if we, who live her, don’t treat it as such.  Damn us all.  If we don’t have a vision, others will, and it may not be as grand as what we that know this coast can put together through cooperation….

I know you must have other things to do that are higher priority than hit the keyboard every nite, as do I.  (We could even consider pickin’ up trash as do Tish and Del in Moss Beach) 

Why cannot we just agree on what we agree on, and DO It.  And for all the other stuff, devil take the hindmost.

your neighbor,

Terry Gossett

Hey Leonard

Thanks for the infrastructure…and that is what those trash cans provided by GSD are….infrastructure.

See, we do agree on something.

Next, Leonard, What I would really love are some benches on the bluffs along Mirada Surf for Old Guys with bad knees..to try to walk the bluff without any rest stops at all is Brutal..  I mean, Really brutal.

And IF we could come up with some plan for rip-rap or anything acceptable to CA Coastal Commission that would keep the beach from disappearing from Coronado to Miramar entirely..in the next 6-8 years——that would be superb…Because, Then Cal-Trans Would do something, Just like they did at Surfer’s Beach. Cal-Trans Rip-Rap.

your neighbor

Terry Gossett

PS

Does CCC have any approved rip-rap…OR is it case by case… and definition by definition?  just curious

“But, Carl, in answering your question…what I was citing was what was one of the stated goals of the HMB Chamber of Commerce for our community.. and as reflected in the HMB Review… to seek out and support eco-tourism. “

Why would I need to give any overall authority in the matters of any of the coastside communities to an outfit like the local Chamber of Commerce. For local issues of concern to me over the past three decades plus, the Chamber gets a D-. Given the amount of destruction to the coastal environment by developers and government it has favored over the years, the Chamber would be one of the last organizations that I would allow to set any general goals for my future. It is a private, self-serving organization, you understand, even with the presence of some good people who have joined from time to time and tried to influence it to take better paths. I, and what is probably the majority of midcoast business owners, have never felt the need to become a member of the Chamber. Thus, the Chamber speaks for the Chamber and no one outside it. It certainly has no authority, ethical or otherwise, over land use.

As for the rest of your last message, the several distinct communities of the coastside are a fact. Most local communities were here many years before those who now desire homogenization and unified governmental rule for their own benefit, usually financial. You may feel you are involved in only one, but that is simply your perception and has no general hegemony over those who form and associate with different communities in different ways. Look at the votes for the different geographic areas of the midcoast on any controversial issue involving land use or conservation hereabouts to verify the differences in just the political area for yourself.

Carl May

Amen to that Carl, except that a D- is too generous. The Chamber’s latest “Eco-Tourism” smokescreen, if not a perfect example of an oxymoron, is but one more attempt to prop up the continuing facade of success and prosperity along Mainstreet and the Coastside and avoid the harder issues of responsible community sustainability. Looking at Downtown HMB is like having an expensive “chocolate mousse” for dessert, except that, when the check comes, you realize something was missing ...... like there was no entree.

Yet one more fault in this ill-conceived self serving plan is that the encouragment of tourism necessitates people having to actually “drive” here FROM somewhere else, all the while our own residents are having to drive TO somewhere else just to buy a pair of underwear. In each case, the support of “Eco-Tourism” will only waste more fuel on both sides. A quick review of some of the average fuel mileages for many of the vehicles typically seen on the Coastside (see http://www.fueleconomy.gov/mpg/MPG.do?action=browseList) paints an even grimmer picture for fuel consumption. Using some national gas mileage figures, the Coastside fuel consumption averages 1/2 to 2/3rds the national average.

Getting back to caring for what we have, the proposition might be made that people from outside the area might care less, on average, about picking up after themselves and otherwise not being involved in trashing the area than people who live here—people who have to live with their surroundings. If there is any substance to this notion, then drawing in more people from outside might exacerbate the trash problem.

Every parking lot and path to a beach should have small but prominent signs urging people to leave no trace of their visit. And the signs should be in English and Spanish, at least. Sometimes a reminder is just the little bit it takes to make people more conscious and willing to behave responsibly. Sometimes not. And the beaches will always have trash as long as it is entering our coastal waters; junk is carried to the most remote and inaccessible beaches on the California coast by water. But eliminating the part generated by beach visitors might at least reduce the pollution to the degree that Kevin Stokes and friends could do something else with their free time.

As Ed Abbey pointed out, cleaning up along the shoulders of highways and streets has an aspect of silliness and futility to it. Ugly, disgusting, and degrading as it is, the trash is only a small fraction as ugly and destructive as the highway itself. I might volunteer for road cleanups if they involved removing the roads.

Rather than considering “eco-tourism” an oxymoron for our area, though I understand the thinking behind the accusation, I would state that the term, as usually employed in the travel industry, is an impossibility here. Just as downtown HMB can never become another Carmel. The “eco-” part usually refers to travel that provides access to something close to untrammeled nature, access that does not disrupt the essential natural systems of a place. In this sense, there is no untrammeled nature on the San Mateo County midcoast to access—not even on those relatively natural hillsides still covered with native species of plants and never cleared nor plowed. The artificial impacts of technological humans are everywhere. If anything, a kind of agri-tourism might be tried, involving the area’s agricultural heritage and its remaining farms. One thing is certain: more development, including expanded infrastructure, in the name of eco-tourism reduces remaining scraps of the eco part even more. Development is the opposite of leaving natural systems to “manage” a place.

Carl May

terry gossett - 12 June 2007 02:07 AM

Thanks for the infrastructure…and that is what those trash cans provided by GSD are….infrastructure.

Give me a break.  I’m not going to accept any twisting of the definition http://m-w.com/dictionary/infrastructure to include trash cans, which are a service.

See, we do agree on something.

I don’t think so.  :-)

Next, Leonard, What I would really love are some benches on the bluffs along Mirada Surf for Old Guys with bad knees..to try to walk the bluff without any rest stops at all is Brutal..  I mean, Really brutal.

Well, I’m not old enough yet to be in that category, but I agree that benches would be nice.  However, the only agency currently empowered to provide them there is County Parks and I don’t see them rushing out to do it.  They will squander all the money on a 12’ asphalt road through the property, which they will label “the Coastal Trail.”

If the Granada Sanitary District (GSD) could get approval to reorganize as a Community Services District, we could provide things such as benches.  Do you support that re-org?

And IF we could come up with some plan for rip-rap or anything acceptable to CA Coastal Commission that would keep the beach from disappearing from Coronado to Miramar entirely..in the next 6-8 years——

Um, no.  rip-rap cannot possibly keep beaches from disappearing; all the literature shows that rip-rap causes beaches to disappear

that would be superb…Because, Then Cal-Trans Would do something, Just like they did at Surfer’s Beach. Cal-Trans Rip-Rap.

That’s just silly, and the only response I can come up with is an equally silly “ewww, gross.”

PS

Does CCC have any approved rip-rap…

I hope not and I assume they don’t.

OR is it case by case… and definition by definition?  just curious

The law (that would be the California Coastal Act) is something like: you can’t install rip-rap to protect structures built after the Coastal Act.  More specifically, rip-rap can only be installed to protect <u>structures</u> which were around <u>prior</u> to the Coastal Act.  Nothing in that provision would allow consideration of rip-rap at Mirada Surf.  Fortunately.

“Um, no.  rip-rap cannot possibly keep beaches from disappearing; all the literature shows that rip-rap causes beaches to disappear”

So then how is the Coastal Commission doing its “job?”  No beaches, nothing for visitors…

Do you have some good links to sources that you could post up here in the form of the “literature?”  Just want to make sure that “all” the literature shows that to be the case.

correction

“No beaches” should read “No coastal trails and/or no beaches”

Next, Leonard, What I would really love are some benches on the bluffs along Mirada Surf for Old Guys with bad knees..to try to walk the bluff without any rest stops at all is Brutal..  I mean, Really brutal.

And IF we could come up with some plan for rip-rap or anything acceptable to CA Coastal Commission that would keep the beach from disappearing from Coronado to Miramar entirely..in the next 6-8 years——that would be superb…Because, Then Cal-Trans Would do something, Just like they did at Surfer’s Beach. Cal-Trans Rip-Rap.

your neighbor

Terry Gossett

Terry, I’m one of those Old Guys that has problems getting around occasionally due to a bad back. Recently I could not walk more than a 1/4 miles without needing to get off my feet and sit down because of extreme pain. I noticed most places I was walking there were no places to sit down like a bench or chair or anything. I solved the problem by purchasing a 3 legged folding camp stool weighing less than 2 pounds with a carring strap. With that I could have a seat anywhere. The point being you can’t expect the local government to place benches and chairs in every location for people like us.  If it’s important enough, you will be creative and provide the solution to fit your needs.

As far as Rip-Rap don’t you think it’s kind of ugly? I’d rather see the coast progress naturally than look at a bunch of Rip-Rap.

I wrote “Um, no.  rip-rap cannot possibly keep beaches from disappearing; all the literature shows that rip-rap causes beaches to disappear”

[quote author=“Brian Ginna responded”]

So then how is the Coastal Commission doing its “job?”  No coastal trails and/or no beaches, nothing for visitors…

I must say I cannot figure out how you got to that conclusion from anything here or anywhere else.  Again, rip-rap makes beaches disappear.  Period.  Rip-rap = no beaches for visitors.

Do you have some good links to sources that you could post up here in the form of the “literature?”  Just want to make sure that “all” the literature shows that to be the case.

I have a better idea.  Why don’t you find something to the contrary and post it here?  I don’t have time to do research for people who don’t really want to know something.  A (now retired) USGS geologist who studied the San Mateo Coastside for 30 years has compiled extensive documentation on this, and comparable documentation exists for the rest of California’s armored coastline.

Ok, I did a Google search on beach armoring loss.  The first hit http://www.soest.hawaii.edu/SEAGRANT/bmpm/coastal_erosion.html ends its first paragraph with this

Based on field and photographic observations, nearly all of this beach degradation is in front of or adjacent to shoreline armoring such as seawalls and revetments.

The second paragraph is even clearer:

Typically, these armoring structures are erected when coastal erosion threatens beachfront development. Armoring the shoreline usually halts coastal erosion and protects property and structures, but on shorelines undergoing long-term retreat, it often leads to beach loss (FLETCHER, ET AL., 1997). The impact that armoring has on the adjoining beach creates a conflict between the rights of coastal property owners to protect their land and the rights of the public to utilize the beach resource.

Scrolling further down, there’s this:

Armoring shorelines undergoing long-term retreat with structures such as revetments and seawalls halts coastal erosion, but refocuses the erosion onto the beach in front of the structure (TAIT AND GRIGGS, 1990; FLETCHER ET AL., 1997). This causes beach narrowing, a decrease in the usable beach width, and beach loss, the volumetric loss of sand from the active beach (Figures 5 and 6). Coastal armoring often aggravates erosion along downdrift properties by decreasing the supply of sediment to downdrift areas.

I got 56,000 hits for my Google search.  You can read the rest of them and see if you can find some containing supportable evidence that armoring does not cause loss of beach.

Heh.  There’s a Half Moon Bay in Washington State!

Leonard said:

“Um, no.  rip-rap cannot possibly keep beaches from disappearing; all the literature shows that rip-rap causes beaches to disappear”

Brian asked:

“Do you have some good links to sources that you could post up here in the form of the ‘literature?’ Just want to make sure that ‘all’ the literature shows that to be the case.”

Leonard started to give Brian the old tired runaround:

“Why don’t you find something to the contrary and post it here?  I don’t have time to do research for people who don’t really want to know something.”

But then (thank you Mr Woren) Leonard did a google search on beach armoring loss and quoted a source that supported what he had to say.

I’m just pointing out that Leonard’s search terms, his quoted source and the 56,000 google hits don’t really answer Brian’s question.

You can often do a google search on a mispelled word and get a bunch of google hits.

We’d all do well to watch our spelling and the use of the word “all”.

That’s an almost-slick attempt at misdirection.  The fact that you can get lots of hits searching on misspelled words has nothing to do with my point.  As to “quoted a source”, that makes it sound like I cherry-picked one of the hits, when in fact I stated that I picked the <u>first</u> hit—which by the way turns out to be the University of Hawaii—and I invited Brian to read the rest of them to see if he can find some that counter my claim.

So, Mary, what would “really answer Brian’s question”?  I feel that regardless of what I point to, if it doesn’t support Brian’s incorrect and therefore unprovable claim, you’ll just come up with another hand wave to brush it off.

Other than lawyers, lobbyists, and rent-a-geologists, I will be greatly surprised if either of you can come up with any references to refute my statement.  Until you do so, I’m going to attempt to avoid taking your bait again in this thread.

Leonard Woren - 16 June 2007 02:54 AM

That’s an almost-slick attempt at misdirection.

Thanks. I think.  :)

So, Mary, what would “really answer Brian’s question”?  I feel that regardless of what I point to, if it doesn’t support Brian’s incorrect and therefore unprovable claim, you’ll just come up with another hand wave to brush it off.

Oh darn. You’re on to me. Disclaimer

Until you do so, I’m going to attempt to avoid taking your bait again in this thread.

Is this a polite plonk? If so, I’d do the same thing if I were in your shoes dealing with someone like me.  Same disclaimer as above

I will not post anymore in this thread I will not post anymore in this thread I will not post anymore in this thread I will not post anymore in this thread I will not post anymore in this thread…

Is this a polite plonk? If so, I’d do the same thing if I were in your shoes dealing with someone like me.

Mary, it would be very undemocratic to plonk anybody on this list. I actually enjoy your post, it bings some levity to my day.

Seems like we have to go through the truism that rip-rap and other coastal armoring causes beach loss every six months. Though some were too dense to get it even after many references, I went through all this for the beach in the northern Fitzgerald Marine Reserve not so long ago. People of Half Moon Bay had a chance to learn about it when Ocean Colony illegally put rip-rap on the beach in front of the Ritz a couple of years ago. It is a topic that is repeatedly covered in the media for the retreating bluffs in Pacifica, thougfh some there don’t get it either.

Rip rap is used to try to halt a natural process, plain and simple, and causes more problems than it temporarily fixes.

Carl May

Carl’s right that the discussion about the rip-rap north of Fitzgerald led to a long discussion, a lot of it unproductive. But there is some good information and references in the topic:

http://coastsider.com/index.php/site/news/1557/

While these are all very interesting points, I don’t want my original post about visitors leaving trash on the coast buried here. No one has commented on my suggestion about erecting a “Please keep the Coast litter free’ sign on 92, or local businesses displaying posters on promoting a ‘Keep the coast litter free’ campaign. Litter is a plague on the coast, it’s ugly and an environmental nightmare on many levels. I feel that the coastal community should band together and make litter awareness an absolute priority, no one wants to sit on a beach and look at litter. Eco tourism on the coast can’t happen while McDonald’s wrappers and broken beer bottles litter our coastlines.

Kevin, while I do applaud your efforts to keep the Coastside clean of litter, as far as getting a “campaign” together, I fear that those efforts would most likely get buried under the pile of larger politically divisive issues; like hoping that the planting of the median strips is miraculously going to solve our economic problems by attracting more tourism.

People throw trash mostly because they don’t care. Certainly, some just may not think about what they’re doing at the time, but it’s how they feel about life and about themselves, and if you can change that, you’re a better man than I. I honestly don’t understand the mind of someone like a smoker, who after polluting themselves, rolls down the window and flicks their butt so that the rest of us can enjoy their own personal misery.

I’ve seen a “soccer mom” in her Lexus SUV pull up and empty her ashtray in the parking lot because she was too lazy to leave her vehicle (not that dumping her ashes in the public waste can would have been a wise thing to do). So, the issue isn’t about wealth. And I don’t think it’s just disgruntled kids or any ethnic faction. I truly think the problem is apathy and disconnectedness, and until we are able to get more of a sense of community here on the Coast, I think you’d have an easier time herding cats. 

Anyway, while you’re figuring all this out, if you come up with a unique and uniform sign format, I’ll be the first business owner to volunteer window place on Main Street for it.

Thanks Frank, I’ll work on it and hold you to that promise of window space. Meanwhile I’ll keep on with my own personal anti-litter crusade.

Cheers

Kevin