OC Register: Residents accused of leveling Newport dunes

[question everything]

Tuesday, November 29, 2005

Residents accused of leveling Newport dunes

Mounds that gave shelter to birds will be rebuilt and may cost $100,000, the California Coastal Commission says.

By JEFF OVERLEY
The Orange County Register

NEWPORT BEACH (CA) – Moving a pile of sand could cost several homeowners here an even bigger pile of cash.

The California Coastal Commission on Monday accused five residents with beachfront property of flattening protected sand dunes to improve their ocean views. The commission is ordering the dunes rebuilt – a process that could reach into the six-figure range.

Considered important habitat for threatened birds, the dunes were allegedly seen as an obstruction by residents whose ocean vistas were blocked by the 3- to 6-foot-tall dunes.

(snip)

An employee of a contractor dredging the adjacent Santa Ana River was paid to bulldoze the dunes, which blocked the first-floor patios of houses on West Ocean Front Drive, said Aaron McClendon, a Coastal Commission enforcement analyst. That furtive flattening, which apparently occurred around midnight on April 17, followed several futile attempts to do away with the dunes, Kiff said. Residents had asked city workers to level the wind-formed mounds, only to be rebuffed. Another time, hired day laborers were caught carting sand away one load at a time.

(snip)

http://www.ocregister.com/ocregister/news/atoz/article_862605.php

[Dora]

1. Manifest Destiny

From sea to shining sea, baby: pillage and plunder.

[Warpy]

2. Somebody needed to point out to them

that the dunes shielded them from any riffraff that managed to walk the 20 miles from the public access path to their beach.

[Loonman]

3. Bury big spikey iron obstacles in the dunes

Like on the beach at Normandy.

[Lowell]

4. Now they less protection

from the action of the sea. This is like the people in Florida that destroy the mangroves for their view. They are simply exposing themselves to greater problems. Hopefully they will get their asses fined and their homes will wash away.