Loren Rex stood on the mostly sand-covered remnant of the old haul road, looking back over the 15-minute difficult hike it took to get from the north end of Ward Avenue to the first road remnant. It seemed impossible there once was a paved road in the open expanse of beach between these two once-connected pieces.
From 1950 to 1989 first giant trucks drove that now-vanished road, then people rode bicycles on a hard road, where only air and ocean now exist. Nearly overnight, ocean storms completely reshaped the beach and dunes area and made hundreds of thousands of tons of material vanish.
Rex, who grew up in the area around MacKerricher, got his first job emptying garbage and cleaning parks in Westport. He went to school, became a ranger and is now the Mendocino sector State Parks superintendent.
Rex was in full park ranger mode as he described for this reporter the flora as we crossed the dunes and beach. We looked at how European beach grass builds cliffs as sand piles upon it, then it grows through, then doing the same again. This creates unnatural barricades and an unnatural environment.
Rex agreed the ocean would probably finish the job someday on the road portion we stood on.
So why not just leave the road and let the ocean do its job?
That is one of the questions state parks is prepared to answer for Mendocino County Supervisors on Tuesday, Aug. 13.
Supervisors will hear the Westport Municipal Advisory Council”s (WMAC) appeal of the coastal zone administrator”s approval of a $750,000 State Parks plan to rip out northern remnants of the haul road. The item is the first thing on the agenda at the meeting, which starts at 10 a.m. at Fort Bragg Town Hall.
The project
The removal does not include either the continuous portion from Ten Mile Bridge to the beach or any of the continuous road that ends a quarter-mile north of Ward Avenue.
At two previous meetings about the project, opposition from the public has been nearly unanimous. Large crowds consisting mostly of people who live north of Fort Bragg have attended and lent support to opponents. Since the last meeting, in which the Coastal Zone administrator ruled in favor of State Parks, a letter writing campaign has been mounted both for and against the project.
The old haul road was built in 1949 over a railroad grade used since 1916 by big trucks to deliver logs from Ten Mile River to the Union Lumber Mill. State Parks began buying land to add to MacKerricher in the 1970s and completed the process by the mid-1990s. Until the late 1980s, the road provided a hard surface for bicycles or walkers all the way from the western end of Ward Avenue to Ten Mile Bridge.
State Parks proposes to dig up and truck away 2.7 miles of three remnant road pieces, totaling 25,000 cubic yards of asphalt, gravel and road bed. That would total about 2,500 dump truck loads (or about 675 million pounds) being carried across the sensitive habitat, under the bridge and out on a road east of the highway.
Thousands of tons of sand will have to be removed from the existing road first, to allow access by heavy equipment. Where the roadway ends, a huge ramp made of natural rock material would be trucked in to move tractors and dump trucks across wet sand on the beach below in order to reach stranded remnants of the old haul road at the southern end of the Ten Mile Dunes Preserve.
The material will be disposed of on other State Parks sites or on private property located about 5 miles from the project. The County attached a special condition that State Parks dispose of the materials as close as possible, keeping some truck traffic off roads.
Many members of the public are pushing State Parks to repair the existing road to improve access or perhaps install floating boardwalks. The main substance of the appeal by the WMAC is that the haul road is designated as the coastal trail for the area and true access should be brought back.
In 2000, State Parks itself was in favor of just that. But back then, the agency was confronted with a mountain of science that showed how any such project could injure rare and endangered flora and fauna. They concluded it could not be done.
Rex presented environmental documents that showed several agencies, such as the U.S Fish and Wildlife Service, had shot down any such plan based on environmental concerns. Such a project would cost millions more than the removal.
Plus, that big gap where the road used to be presents another problem the road can”t go back where it used to be. Rex and this reporter looked to largely unused areas that would have to be studied for archeological and environmental obstacles. When the railroad was first built, the builders found and built over Native American sites.
Why not simply leave the road remnants to the whims of the ocean, rather than spending money and using all that heavy equipment in an environmentally sensitive area?
The two portions of the road closest to Ward Avenue are the ones most likely to be wiped out by the ocean, being now within the beach zone. Removing those two pieces will cause the most harm, as heavy equipment will have to cross the sand and sensitive habitat to get there.
The 2.1 miles that extends from Ten Mile River south, most of it buried and most of it well away from the ocean, is the only part of the project of any current use to hikers. It is also the area most impacting the environment.
Rex said the area is truly special so ecologically unique and home to so many rare plant species that it”s worth all the effort to restore it.
Opponents say creating a useable trail can be done, as the California Coastal Commission places public access and environmental preservation on nearly equal footing. But grants available in recent years have favored preservation, not access.
Problems posed
The public has raised several other questions about problems with the road removal, which are presented here in question and answer format.
? Can European beach grass truly be removed in the long term?
The scientific documents show that both the road and the European beach grass are blocking the sand, but that the beach grass is actually far worse in altering the environment. So for the project to succeed, removal of this invasive species (which is part of the $750,000 effort) must succeed. State Parks suspended chemical spraying in MacKerricher only because of local protests. The removal was in the area of the haul road destroyed by the ocean in a great storm in 1988 or 1989. Removing it would clearly disrupt a lot of sand due to its trait of creating huge sand piles to hide in. So far, removing it has been successful. Since 2007, the original cover of 95 acres of European beach grass has been reduced by about 60 percent; the retreatment areas are contained within the remaining 40 percent.
However, there is much controversy in the scientific community about whether any persistent invasive can be removed for the long term.
? Will pulling out the road drain wetlands and unleash a mountain of migratory sand?
“Sand will move to the east naturally. Studies have shown the western dunes are not directly connected with the eastern dunes. Experts believe to reach the eastern dune system the sand from the beach will take hundreds if not thousands of years,” said Rex.
The WMAC believes this is a major concern in removal of the road.
“The project will intentionally destabilize the fore dunes in the northern park, with massive wind and water erosion acknowledged as a predictable outcome,” the WMAC appeal states.
“[Documents] for the project [fail to] analyze the volume of sand that will be mobilized or its impacts on the environment and neighboring land owners. Engineer David Paoli estimates nearly a million cubic yards of sand will migrate east, burying wetlands, endangered species habitat, and neighboring lands. ? Monitoring requirements are inadequate and no dedicated compensation fund or bond is established as a condition of permit approval,” the appeal states.
? Isn”t there something better to spend this money on within the local parks? Is this being done because it”s the easy grant or because this is the greatest need?
Critics, such as Stan Anderson, a local supporter of the parks and marine wildlife, have said State Parks should instead seek grant money for something with much greater usefulness, such as a whopping amount of deferred maintenance or upgrading side trails south of Ward Avenue.
“The department has elevated this project because of the uniqueness and resource value of the dune system,” Rex said. “The Ten Mile Dunes are a significant statewide resource that needs to be protected and managed.”
? Is Parks listening?
Some members of the public have accused State Parks of not listening to taxpayers, based on the nearly unanimous opposition at the two public meetings held.
Rex said State Parks listens to and serves all the voters of the state. He believes if this went to a vote in the Inglenook community of the dunes it might fail, but it would pass if the whole coast area voted and by a bigger margin if the whole state participated in the vote.
? What toxins might emerge from under the road?
WMAC and other critics, have repeatedly expressed worries that nobody knows what is under the road, a railroad bed that was built more than a century ago.
“The project will remove the asphalt road surface which currently acts to sequester contaminants, as well as the hazardous underlying ballast and timbers,” the WMAC appeal says. “Yet no sampling or Phase I hazardous waste study was included in the (plans) supporting the project to determine the presence of toxic materials or plan for the special handling and disposal that they will require.
“Treated wood waste is known to contain hazardous chemicals at elevated levels that are subject to California”s Hazardous Waste Control Law. Hazardous waste can be reasonably anticipated based on comparable studies of the G-P mill site where the former railroad originated,” the WMAC appeal states.
Rex said this has been studied, including using ground penetrating radar. No such pollution has emerged when the ocean has torn miles of other road out.
“Historic photos show the removal of railroad ties when the train tracks were widened to 18 feet for the road. Railroad ties are known not to have been treated with toxic materials. Parks does have a contingency plan if there are ties found,” Rex said.
The reshaping of the shoreline has continued due to shifting underwater dynamics in the Cape Mendocino Area, where new beach has been added in recent years.
The budget for the project has grown beyond $750,000 due to the staff time spent on the appeals. A figure should be available at the board meeting Tuesday.
