9:14am | “What’s that thing out there?” I asked someone shortly after moving to Long Beach in 2004. I was pointing to the breakwater, and whether or not my question came before or after I inquired about why Long Beach’s beaches are so crappy is beside the point.
My awareness of the breakwater—and why it ought to be sunk (metaphorically, at least)—was heightened while I was working for The District Weekly when Jenny Stockdale published some excellent work on the subject—how it could be reconfigured to improve water quality, surf, etc.
Stockdale, if I’m not mistaken, got turned on to the issue by the Long Beach Chapter of the Surfrider Foundation, which maintains a great fact sheet on the breakwater. Unless they’re big liars, the Surfrider Foundation’s agenda is “to the protection and enjoyment of the world’s oceans, waves and beaches for all people, through conservation, activism, research and education.”1 Their conclusion about the breakwater? Do away with it.
The raison d’être for our 2.5-mile portion of the breakwater originally concerned protecting U.S. Navy ships from Nazi U-boat attacks during World War II and was always connected to the Long Beach Naval Shipyard. Therefore, since the shipyard was closed in 1997, at best the breakwater is so 20th century.
So why has progress in getting rid of it been so slow? Why only now are arriving at just the point where the City has signed (to quote this Long Beach Post story) “a cost-sharing agreement to solidify the East San Pedro Bay Ecosystem Restoration Study” (the new official name of the project)?
My intentionally oversimplifying guess is that it comes down to short-sightedness. Even in better economic times than these, I’m sure there have always been people complaining that the money it will take to do away with this unnatural oceanic additive could go toward more immediate needs. And those people have always had a point.
But when you take the long view—which is always the vantage point from which one should consider the environment—that point is mitigated. However, a more direct riposte to that point is to make the long-term economic argument—which can be done with one word: tourism.
It takes no economic genius to see2 that if Long Beach had surf, there would be more reason for people to choose Long Beach as a vacation destination, and thus patronize our hotels and other businesses.
But to use the term ‘tourism’ in a more local sense, with surf more people from inland would come to Long Beach to enjoy our, um, long beach. More people = more diners, shoppers, et to the cetera. This greater prosperity, though, would not be limited to the business of doing business; it would inevitably trickle over into the business of running a city via taxes and whatnot.
Along with creating a more comprehensive and vibrant urban center (which I talk about here), something Long Beach can do to move to the next level fiscally is to refashion itself a destination for beachgoers. Despite its name, right now Long Beach is pretty far from that.
Anything that ever gets done gets done because someone took the initiative to begin the task, and someone—be it the same individual(s) or those who came after—followed through. Regarding the breakwater, cumulatively those who have come before us have done far too little to make this obvious change for the better.
Let us do better by those who follow in our sandy footsteps.
Footnotes
1surfrider.org/whoweare2.asp
2Which is exactly why I’m able to see it.