(Sorry for the difficulties, but the two studies posted in this column are now up and working properly. Enjoy!)
News travels fast in Long Beach. If you’ve got a good idea, and you get it to the right people, pretty soon it will spread like crazy. Especially if it’s a hot-button issue.
So when Bud Johnson—a retired engineer who spent considerable time on the Marine Advisory Commission for Long Beach, the Department of Boating and Waterways for California and the Queensway Bay Plan in the ‘90s—started going around and announcing that he’d completed a breakwater study on his own time, people listened. The right people. The people that would be able to put that information to use. The people that realized Johnson had just done—for free—what the City Council was willing to pay at least $100,000 for.
(Click here to download the 46-page, 3.6MB study file)
They loved it. His report said exactly what they had all suspected, but was realistic. Johnson’s report was not some quixotic list of demands to bring back Long Beach’s waves, eliminate pollution and still protect the shore from harsh swells. He had done enough research to realize what was possible and what was not. All he wanted was to have people examine his work and consider how or if it could be used to help the situation.
But while news travels fast, action happens slowly. Months passed—right now’s not the best time, some said—and Johnson continued toiling, tweaking, waiting for the right person to run with the study and turn it into action. Finally, the City Council took action on the issue… and last week voted 6-2 to request mega-firm Moffatt & Nichol to produce a study determining the best use for the breakwater. The same kind of study, one could say, that Johnson had done on his own time, shopped around to anyone and everyone that could help, and all without looking for a cent.
“It’s worth a lot of money, but I don’t need a lot of money,” says Johnson, whose study is apparently worth at least $100,000, which the Council agreed to pay M&N.
“I’m not in it for anything. Sometimes one person can make a difference.”
Well, two people. He gives substantial credit to his wife, who spent many hours of the night typing up most of the report’s 46 pages and encouraging him to continue. Through research, historical background, weather reports, development studies, environmental trends and good plain engineering techniques, Johnson packaged his work and showed people the plan:
Drop 1,800 feet of the structure down to sea level. That’s it. Don’t need to blow it up or remove the whole thing. Just take an 1,800-ft. stretch of the 2.5 mile long structure, and knock it down to sea level. Tidal flow will resume, and high tide will wash over the breakwater twice a day to enter the bay and pull water back out as it recedes, creating circulation in the harbor that hasn’t existed in some time. Water quality will drastically increase as surface level pollution is sucked out into the open ocean rather than festering in the bay and ending up on our beaches. It won’t bring surf-worthy waves like many had hoped, but it’ll do something.
“I grew up with this beach. I was here when it was good and I know where it went wrong,” says Johnson, a longtime surfer who lives just a short walk from the shore. “I’m a surfer but I’m not interested in solving the surfing problem. I’m trying to get the beach clean.”
According to his study, reducing a stretch of the breakwater will do just that. The number one reason for poor beach quality is a lack of movement in the water—a stagnant mass that allows pollutants and debris to accumulate and wash up on shore. Johnson found the answer that the City Council had been—and still is—looking and waiting for. But with the Council moving forward and requesting a study from Moffat & Nichol that could take months—ironically, the very worry that got Johnson started in the first place—he’ll have to find another way to put it to use.
At this point, the report’s value won’t be maximized until after M&N’s study is complete. Then he can present it to them and cross his fingers that they take his findings into account. Why wouldn’t they? It’s free advice, approached in a way that most hadn’t thought to try.
“As long as we look at it from the big picture, nothing’s going to happen. So let’s isolate the issues,” Johnson says as he explains his choice to focus simply on solving the water quality and pollution problem. “When I started writing it opened up the concept of working solely on surface pollution. That’s a Long Beach issue. We don’t need other cities or agencies to solve this.
“People in Long Beach are pretty fed up. Except they haven’t tried to do anything yet. This is something real that can happen in five years. They want to do it from the top, down. I want to do it from the bottom, up. And nobody can tell me this won’t work.”
There probably won’t be anyone who tells him it won’t work. But there are plenty of obstacles to overcome in order to get it to work. Yes, the plan would be exponentially faster to implement and cheaper than a complete breakwater overhaul, but it would still take an estimated five years and $10 million (“Probably $5 million to actually do it, and another $5 million for paperwork and permitting,” he says).
There are plenty who agree with Johnson and have offered their support. He won’t name names but those you’d expect to be in favor, are. And those you’d expect to not be in favor, aren’t. To win over those Haterade drinkers, Johnson continues refining the report and—on the advice of an official—is currently working on a simplified, 5-6 page version for quicker reading. But the message remains the same.
“Let’s just do something rather than spend money,” he says. “What is going to be the result of this [Moffatt & Nichol] study? Seems to me, it’d be worthless if they don’t start working on possible solutions. Let’s start small now and find out if what I’m talking about is no good.”
It might sound like frustration, but Johnson is surprisingly level-headed and puts things in perfect perspective.
“I’ve worked with the government and eventually turned them around,” he says of his hand in developing the city’s marina in the late 90’s and 2000. “I know that things can be done. It just takes a lot of grinding. I’m not frustrated, I know it’s part of the game.”
He’s played the game flawlessly thus far, and when he could seemingly admit defeat or sit back and wait, he continues to hone and mold his project until it’s given the chance to serve its purpose.
“We’re not going to give up on it. We’re just jumping through the hoops until we’re told that it can or can’t happen.”
Those hoops may slow him down, but they’re not stopping him. Johnson is a self-professed never-giver-upper and loves his hometown beach too much for that. And with public support that he’s hoping to rally, it’ll be hard to ignore the man who worked for free to give his neighbors something to be proud of.
(Click here to download a 56-page, 3MB study on reducing the breakwater’s height by 30 feet, done in 1998)
By Ryan ZumMallen, Managing Editor