Orange County officials are moving forward with a series of projects to stabilize a stretch of coastal railway through San Clemente despite environmental critics saying the “haphazard” measures will only have short term benefits.
The coastal rail is part of the Los Angeles-San Diego-San Luis Obispo, or LOSSAN, rail corridor. Train service has had multiple disruptions since 2021 because of erosion and landslides.
The emergency measures approved by the Orange County Transportation Authority board include the addition of more than 500,000 cubic yards of sand, as well as the repairing and additions of rock along the coastal railway. The California Coastal Commission’s permit approvals also include installing a 1,400-foot catchment wall to hold debris from landslides and restoring a pedestrian trail at Mariposa Point.
But Mandy Sackett, senior California policy coordinator for Surfrider Foundation, said the “haphazard” short term rock walls won’t hold back the ocean and will instead destroy beach access for the public.
Environmental groups say that while the catchment wall will help address the issues that have led to railroad closures, the continued addition of rocks is exacerbating coastal erosion and limiting public access to the beach.
“If everything was natural, as coastal erosion happened, the beach would just move inland. But what the rocks do is that they put an arbitrary line in the sand and they fix the coastline right there,” said Suzie Whitelaw, president of Save Our Beaches San Clemente.
Storm waves crashing against the rocks, she said, then accelerate erosion.
“ It becomes a vicious cycle,” she said.
Sackett added that the current walls prevent the public from walking from city beaches to San Clemente State Beach and San Onofre State Beach.
The sand option
Whitelaw said sand is the the best solution for creating a long lasting buffer, adding ”the wide sandy beaches protected the tracks for 130 years until they got too narrow.”
The beaches along the rail got so narrow that there was no dry beach left, but sand replenishment efforts by the San Clemente City Council, she said, has now resulted in some dry sand in North Beach.
Researchers at UC Irvine have previously told LAist that sand is the natural defense against strong waves.
The stabilization measures include sand, but it’s not coming soon.
The California Coastal Commission granted emergency permits to OCTA, but now the transportation authority needs to obtain permits from the Army Corps of Engineers for the sand, with the project expected to start next year.
The commission also pushed back on a request to install a 1,200-foot rock wall near San Clemente State Beach, a decision applauded by environmental groups like the Surfrider Foundation.
“This is a $300-million public works project that the OCTA is trying to push through the emergency permit process, which kind of circumvents environmental review, any public input, and it's really frustrating,” Sackett said.
Joel Zlotnik, a spokesperson for OCTA, told LAist the work will result in the temporary closure of the rail line, but the agency is still working out a timeline. He added that OCTA obtained the money for the projects from the federal and state governments.
OCTA has spent about $40 million since 2021 to address emergency closures of the railroad, he said.
What is the long term outlook for the coastal rail corridor?
OCTA is currently spearheading the Orange County coastal rail resiliency study” to explore long term protection strategies for the coastal rail corridor. The report was supposed to come out later this year, but Zlotnik told LAist that it will likely be released in 2026 because the stabilization measures will take precedence.
“We want to make sure we have sufficient time to get enough meaningful feedback,” he said.
