Sawt Falasteen - Olympic surfing venue battling erosion threat

But as Trestles prepares to showcase the world's best surfers in three years time, locals hope the Olympics can shine a spotlight on -- and help protect -- this narrow strip of coastline that is steadily shrinking due to erosion.

"You can see that the beach here is pretty narrow. It used to be much wider," says Suzie Whitelaw, president of the local advocacy group Save Our Beaches San Clemente, adding that Trestles has shrunk by approximately 30 feet in the past 10 years.

Whitelaw, a former oceanography professor with expertise in marine sediment dynamics and environmental geology, said the erosion is largely due to human development inland.

"Decades ago, 100 years ago, they started building dams. And the dams keep back the water, but they also keep back the sand.

"And over the decades, we just ended up with a huge deficit of sand. Every year the ocean reclaims a part of the beach. It needs to be replenished, needs to be replaced.

"So now that the natural sources (of sand), the rivers, are pretty much blocked off and we're not getting a natural replenishment, humans have to step in and do artificial replenishment."

The erosion is also accentuated by an increase in the power of waves due to the warming of the ocean.

Throughout the region, the ocean is swallowing up stretches of coastline, with erosion leaving multi-million dollar homes teetering on the edge of cliffs and sliding closer to the sea. The Pacific Surfliner, a scenic railroad which passes nearby, has experienced regular closures due to erosion and landslides affecting the tracks.

To combat erosion, the neighboring town of San Clemente has dumped more than 190,000 cubic meters of sand on its beaches, and anticipates a need for more than 2.3 million cubic meters to be added over the next 50 years.

"What we're trying to do is restore the beaches to where they were 20 or 30 years ago," said San Clemente City Council director Andy Hall, who pinpoints the construction of a port at nearby Dana Point as one of the causes of erosion in San Clemente.

- Olympic catalyst? -

Hall adds that sand is a more effective way of stabilising the coastline than large boulders or concrete, which have been deployed in recent years to protect the railroad tracks.

At Trestles Beach, however, adding sand to the site creates a headache, risking changing the topography of the seabed, altering the waves beloved by surfers.

Sand could also pose a problem for the fragile coastal wetlands next to the beach. In any case, with meagre financial resources, the park would also struggle to fund such an initiative.

Julian Husbands, an avid amateur surfer who is also part of the Save Our Beaches group, hopes that the Olympics can be a catalyst for change.

"The Olympics is a once in a lifetime thing," Husbands said. "So hopefully we can use that to compel more folks to understand 'Okay, we've created this problem and we can fix it.'"

For Kanoa Igarashi, an Olympic shortboard surfing silver medallist for Japan at the 2020 Tokyo Games who was born and raised in Southern California, the plight of Trestles hits close to home.

"It's a really special wave for me, and the connection that I have here is really magical," the 27-year-old said, shortly after finishing runner-up at a World Surf League event at Trestles in June.

"Erosion is definitely something very visible and I've seen it over the years. I've been surfing here for more than 20 years now, and it's something that's very scary. It's changed the wave a little bit, not so much, but I'm just worried that something could happen.

"Obviously, we never want to lose this special wave. The waves in the ocean, they're so sensitive that we have to make sure we do our part to protect it...

"The Olympics is all about leaving the venues better than they first came, whether it's economically, whether it's structurally, for the next generation. I trust the Olympics that they're going to preserve it and not only just preserve it, but make it better."

The chances of Los Angeles 2028 organisers providing funds to help tackle the erosion at Trestles, however, are remote.

Interviewed by AFP, LA28 chairman Casey Wasserman said Olympics organisers remain focused on simply ensuring that the venue comes up to scratch, ruling out investment beyond that.

"There's lots of talk about the shorelines, but Olympic surfing is going to be great at Trestles and that's our job," Wasserman said.

"We want to make sure that we have the best competition for the greatest athletes and Trestles is going to provide that."

R.Shaban--SF-PST