Save Trestles!

The Coastal Commission meets next week to decide the fate of San Onofre State Park and the Trestles point break. Some developer people have submitted a plan to build a toll road, passing behind San Clemente and directly through San Onofre State Park, the fifth most visited State Park in Cali. If approved, the highway would cut off 60 percent of Park. Clicky the pic at left to see the before and after shots of the project posted by the good people at Surfline. The “after” images were created as part of the official proposal, and are designed to be as accurate as possible.

So nice to take a walk in the woods. Along side a freeway.

What’s a freeway got to do with a surf break? Trestles is a point, created and nourished by San Mateo Creek, a creek that the new chunk of concrete would largely cover. A point break needs its river to survive. Orphaned from the creek, the point stops working, because the silty rocky bits that keep the waves breaking all the way down the point are no longer replenished by the flow of the creek.

Build the highway, lose the break. Simple.

Governor Arnie has signalled his support for the project, but the Coastal Commission has still to approve it. The company building the freeway likely bought Arnie’s support with their offer of a one-time $100 million offset payment, intended to compensate for the lost State Park lands. Surfrider is rocking it hard to convince the Commissioner guys that this is the wrong freeway in the wrong place. See what they have to say to the notion of selling off the State Park in this recent interview.

Surfrider has also posted an online petition thingy.

Me? I think SoCali already has far too many freeways. Far, far too many.