Ventura County Supervisors are up-in-arms over a project impacting the County that has many officials complaining about discussions in a somewhat secretive deal-making process. The issue is a project that would have 43,000 one-way truckloads of sand, driven five days a week through numerous towns all across Ventura County, to a beach in Malibu.

In 2012 Broad Beach homeowners created an assessment district, the Broad Beach Geologic Hazard Abatement District (GHAD) to tax themselves $31 million. The money is needed to replenish and create an expansive public beach in front of their Malibu homes. But getting the proper sand needed became a huge problem. After years of searching, GHAD found it in Ventura County rock quarries.

A problem arose when it was discovered that the selected route to deliver the sand from Grimes Canyon rock quarry to Malibu was not made public before being agreed upon. The project would have thousands of truckloads of sand traveling north through Fillmore, instead of a more direct route through Moorpark.

Two months ago, without considering the impact on towns along the chosen truck route, which includes Fillmore, Santa Paula, Camarillo, Oxnard and the unincorporated towns of Saticoy and El Rio, the City of Moorpark quietly entered into an agreement with GHAD to deliver the needed sand. But the longer truck route the two parties agreed upon avoids Moorpark altogether. The agreement has trucks leaving the Grimes Canyon quarry going north on Hwy 23 and west on Hwy 126 and then south again. The project is expected to start next September and continue thru May for the next 10 years.

The longer route agreed upon is 54.5 miles one-way. There are two shorter, more direct routes. One is going a more direct route, taking Hwy 23 south through Moorpark to Hwy 101 to Kanan, then south to Hwy 1, which is 37.8 miles; almost 17 miles less. This raises the question, why would GHAD agree to a route that is approximately 30% longer.

Another alternate and shorter route than the one agreed upon goes north on Hwy 23 to Hwy 118 west to Los Posas and south to Hwy 1, and is almost 14 miles shorter than the chosen route. The difference, besides being shorter, is that those alternate routes would go through Moorpark.

The Broad Beach Project involves a number of agencies including the Coastal Commission, Army Corps of Engineers, the State Land Commission and the Regional Water Quality Control Board. To date the Army Corps of Engineers and the Regional Water Quality Control Board have not signed off on the project.

Before coming to the agreement with GHAD Moorpark Mayor Janice Parvin sent a letter to the Coastal Commission complaining of the dust and other particulate matter that contribute to air and noise pollution that the trucks would have and the impact on Moorpark's lower-income Latino community.

The logic in Parvin’s stance does not seem solid when comparing the demographics and income levels of both Moorpark and Fillmore. The estimated median household income in Moorpark is $97,815 (per capita $35,813) with a median home value of $522,065 and a Latino population at 32.4%. Compared to Fillmore's demographic and income levels; estimated median household income $55,776 (per capita $20,400) with home value averages of $306,035 and a Latino population of 78.2%.

Fillmore City Manager David Rowlands stated a number of concerns, "We have the same issues" that Parvin wrote about in the letter to the Coastal Commission. He also stated Fillmore is in active coordination with the other towns impacted by the project including many "Ventura County Supervisors to get an amicable solution to the situation." They will be focusing on the remaining regulatory officials involved.

County Supervisors and Fillmore officials point out that the path the trucks are expected to take, which completely avoids Moorpark, was drawn up by the town of Moorpark without any notice of their intent to those cities impacted by the plan.

Rowlands said he "first heard about the project in the Los Angeles Times" and was totally stunned to find that Moorpark had not contacted any Fillmore officials. "I sent an email to all the cities involved" to give them a heads-up.

Santa Paula City Manager Jaime Fontes was also left in the dark about the project and stated he first heard about it at either a Ventura County Transit Committee Meeting or through the email Rowlands sent out. Fontes stated, "We fully support Fillmore and will be working together, we have some of the same dust and air quality issues....the environmental footprint is huge with this project."

Camarillo City Manager Bruce Feng said he also had first heard of the project by reading it in the newspaper and had not been contacted by any one involved about it. Feng stated, "We're working with Supervisor Kathy Long to evaluate the impact on our town."

The City Manager of Moorpark was called for comment, but did not return the call.

The environmental footprint is huge, to say the least. Besides the impact to the coastline and beach that the Coastal Commission and other agencies are reviewing, there is the 20 trucks that will be in constant use from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. and the mileage they will cover to bring the 600,000 cubic yards of sand GHAD wants. The project will be done in two-five years blocks of time starting in September 2016. The first five years 300,000 cubic yards of sand will be delivered, and the remaining 300,000 cubic yards of sand delivered within next five years.

The question of what impact the extra 14 to 17 miles each one-way trip will have on the highways and roads arises. When taking the chosen indirect route, it ends up being hundreds of thousands of extra miles. The route presently chosen, going through Fillmore, puts the trucks on the road 4,687,000 miles round trip. Whereas the alternate routes, going directly south using Hwy 101 to Kanan, puts the trucks on the road 2,276,000 miles round trip. When Los Posas to Hwy 1 is used, the trucks travel 2,508,800 miles round trip. The alternate routes go 1.4 million miles less using Hwy 101, and almost 1.2 million less miles driven when using Los Posas.

Putting the impact of the truck route aside, there are other questions of whether the Broad Beach Project will solve the problem of a disappearing beachfront. Broad Beach has been dealing with its shrinking beach for years. The effort to nourish the beach with inland sand is considered an experimental pilot project.

Broad Beach, one of the most expensive and exclusive neighborhoods in Malibu, is 1.1 miles of mosaic public and private beach. Thirty years ago the beachfront homes had a 100 to 150 foot wide dry sandy beach, much larger than other exclusive Malibu enclaves. Today, that beach has shrunk to a narrow sliver of wet sand; at higher tides and during winter there is no dry sand visible. In 2008 an emergency permit from the City of Malibu allowed the homeowners to place an 8-10 foot high wall of sandbags, resembling a battlefield of makeshift bunkers, to shielded their property, but that only made the erosion worse. Bulkheads, rock piles and other methods were used, all had the opposite effect, as the sand continually swept away.

For years those studying the gradual decrease of beaches in California have attributed it to a rise of sea levels, which have swelled about eight inches in the last century and are projected to accelerate, mostly from the El Nino's over the past 20 years. As ocean temperatures increase the warmed water expands and occupies more space. It is predicted that as sea level rises, the beaches are going to get narrower and narrower depending on the slope of the beach. Every inch of sea-level rise claims an average of 50 inches of land.

Add to that a chronic shortage of beach sand and it becomes a big problem. Rivers and streams are dammed and lined with concrete to direct sediment-laden flood waters safely out to sea, cutting off the natural flow of sand that replenishes beaches. These flood-control measures, as well as the building of sea walls to protect seaside cliffs and homes are showing unintended results.

GHAD's first attempt to acquire the needed sand was to use up to 500 barge trips and 270-small vessel trips from a 27-acre plot on the bottom of the coastal waters about a half mile off Manhattan Beach. Sea-bottom sand is far cheaper material to use since the sand can be moved in larger quantities; 6,000 cubic yards per load compared to trucks which can only carry 20 cubic yards per load. The City of Manhattan Beach voted against the project complaining that the Land Commissions report did not address potential impacts to the city.

GHAD also tried the sea-bottom sand off Dockweiler Beach near LAX. That too was rejected by Los Angeles.

Broad Beach also has a public relations problem as complaints of homeowners being very possessive of the beach they considered their backyards, resulting in acrimonious conflicts with public access. ‘No Trespassing’ signs and hired security guards patrolling the beach on four-wheel ATVs did not sit well with the Coastal Commission. Today, the homeowners realize that just having a beach was the real issue, even when having to share it with the public.