Surface Motion
P leasure Point One Year After Harbor Opens
"Sea Wall Collapse Blamed on Harbor's 'Sand Steal'"
Santa Cruz Sentinel photo
September 12, 1965: A sea wall in front of the residence of Soquel Point resident Eugene A. Richards collapses due to wave action. Richards blames the collapse of the wall on the erosion caused by the building of the harbor, completed a little more than a year before. A small beach that had protected the wall from wave action had disappeared. The erosion threatens homes all the way to Capitola.
Beach erosion causes disaster area
Santa Cruz Sentinel photo
September 13, 1965: The arrows define where the beach had been. This is the area where the beach has been lost, from Moran Lake to Soquel Point.
The East Cliff Shoreline Protective Association is formed in an effort to stop the erosion of the cliffs on Soquel Point. The group asks that the area be declared a disaster area.
Commentary: Already the County and the Federal Government are throwing good money after bad at the problem, with the Army Corps of Engineers contracted to fix the problem that they, presumably, caused. A contract is placed with the corps for rip rap barriers to be constructed on the cliffs as an emergency deterrent to erosion.
This call for rip rap in 1965 is only the start of decades of engineering projects to armor the cliffs of Pleasure Point. Today, seawalls and rip rap shore up the entire coast from Moran Lake all the way to Capitola. Most of the beaches, the natural protection of the cliffs, are gone.
