San Clemente Beaches Wash Away as El Niño Looms — SkimNews
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- Cameron Cosgrove, a retired IT executive and San Clemente beach restoration activist, authored a ballot measure for the November election proposing a voluntary 1% sales tax to fund beach restoration and wildfire prevention, estimating the city needs 4 to 6 million cubic yards of sand.
- The San Clemente coastal rail line — which carries $1bn in freight annually and is the nation's second-busiest passenger line — has been shut down seven times since 2021 for repairs after landslides and surging tides, with closure times totaling more than one year over the past five years.
- USGS oceanographer Sean Vitousek warned the region is 'in for a run of pretty exceptional erosion events' if a Super El Niño develops as expected, while California scientists projected in 2023 that sea level rise could erase 25% to 75% of state beaches by 2100.
- Early September storms in Dana Point caused $33m in private property damage and $25m in damage to public beaches, with 10 coastal homes red-tagged as uninhabitable, according to Mayor John Gabbard.
- San Clemente's beaches were originally fortified with approximately 2 million cubic yards of sand dredged during Dana Point harbor construction in the late 1960s, and the town is slated to host Olympic surfing at Lower Trestles in 2028.
- Dana Point's Republican Mayor John Gabbard publicly noted that October 5 hit 90°F in his city — 'unheard of' without Santa Ana winds — adding that 'nobody's using the words global warming, but everybody is recognizing that it's warmer.'
- Approximately 38% of southern California's coastline is now armored with sea walls, revetments, or rock piles, up from 2.5% half a century ago, as the standard short-term response to accelerating erosion.
Why it matters: This matters because San Clemente — a town that voted for Trump in both 2020 and 2024 — is now poised to vote on taxing itself to fight climate-driven coastal erosion, a practical shift that signals even skeptical communities are reaching for local solutions as the threat becomes undeniable. The stakes are concrete: a $1bn freight corridor has already lost a cumulative year of service to erosion damage, and an Olympic surfing venue sits on the same disappearing sand.
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