Imagine driving north on California’s Pacific Coast Highway with your surfboards strapped to the roof of your car, cruising through Surf City and the quiet community of Surfside, then breezing past surfers catching waves in Seal Beach.
The surf safari destination: Long Beach.
As it stands today, Long Beach isn’t on anyone’s list of hot surfing spots. The reason is simple: There rarely are any surfable waves.
But could that change?
Mayor Robert Garcia and a representative from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers recently signed an agreement to begin a $3 million study to find out how to spruce up the waters off Long Beach. It has taken 15 years — and countless meetings and discussions — to launch the three-year study.
The focus of the East San Pedro Bay Ecosystem Restoration Study is to figure out whether altering or removing a rock wall breakwater would improve ocean quality — to see if kelp, eel grass and wetlands could thrive in the area with better water circulation. Any work to make changes in the breakwater — which some oppose over fears it might lead to coastal erosion — wouldn’t occur for several years.
One intriguing element of the study — for surfers at least — involves looking at “surface wave effects,” or how waves may form if the breakwater is changed or removed.
Garcia said the return of robust surf to Long Beach could turn out to be an added benefit of the project.
“I know that the recreational piece and the wave-action piece is important, especially for the people who would want to see surf,” Garcia said.
He noted that surfable waves could bring added economic perks, including increasing property values near the beach.
“There’s a lot of positives,” he said.
A study called Surfonomics, by Surfrider CEO Chad Nelsen, showed that surfers drawn to waves can result in a big economic boost. While the study focused specifically on Trestles south of San Clemente, it highlighted the fact that people are willing to spend a lot of money for quality surf.
The survey found that, on average, surfers spent from $25 to $40 per visit to Trestles with a total of about 330,000 trips in 2006, generating $8 million to $13 million of revenue per year.
Had the breakwater not been built, Long Beach could have been a world-class surf destination drawing enthusiasts to the town. It was once one of the most pristine surf spots on the coast, considered the Waikiki of Southern California in its heyday in the 1930s.
The rock wall was put in place in 1949 as part of the port project, and the breakwater was used by the U.S Navy. With it, the stellar surf disappeared.
It was one of several local examples of man-made structures destroying a surf spot, similar to what happened to so-called Killer Dana when the Dana Point Harbor was built. Or the waves Duke Kahanamoku used to ride in Corona del Mar, which were flattened when a jetty was put in for the growing boating industry.
The movement to resurrect Long Beach as a surf spot has been led by Surfrider’s “Sink the Breakwater, Restore the Shore” campaign.
The Surfrider campaign — and the Ecosystem Restoration Study — involves only the Long Beach breakwater, and not the San Pedro and middle breakwaters that protect the Port of Los Angeles and the Port of Long Beach.
Surfers such as Kelli Koller, owner of Seventh Wave Surf Shop in Long Beach and a board member for Surfrider’s Long Beach chapter, have been following the issue closely. For her, a surfable wave in Long Beach can’t come soon enough.
“It’s been a long time coming,” she said of the study. “I’m ridiculously excited.”
Koller has witnessed the potential of Long Beach’s waves, surfing small peelers along the shore when the swell direction aligns just right. But that only happens once every few years.
“It would be an old wave coming back. It was one of the best on the coast at one point,” she said.
Most days, she packs up her boards in her van and heads to Newport or Huntington. But if waves showed up in her town: “I’d never leave.”
“It would be a dream come true,” she said.
But before surfers start daydreaming about a new surf spot a short drive from Orange County’s overcrowded waves, Garcia quickly warned that the city wouldn’t risk damaging beachfront homes or the port to make Long Beach a surf town.
Issues like sea levels rising and king tides — which can bring water levels close to homes, especially during big swells — also will be studied.
“We want to know what’s possible and not possible,” Garcia said. “We need to be driven by science.”
Those who oppose breakwater changes worry about erosion to the peninsula.
Hurricane Marie, which brought massive surf to the coastline in 2014, threatened beachfront homes, and workers scrambled day and night to pile up sand to avoid damage.
“It’s pretty dangerous to be close to the water with the waves coming in. When the surf got really big, it was just insane,” peninsula resident Makenzie Hendrix said in an interview during the Hurricane Marie swell.
Garcia hopes the results of the study will ultimately mean more people will enjoy Long Beach’s cleaned-up coastline — with or without waves.
“The coast is such a big part of our city, and the coastline has been changed dramatically because of the breakwater,” he said. “At the end of this, we’ll definitely know what we can or can’t do. What I can envision is making enough restorations and improving water quality, where you can have more folks enjoy the coast.”
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