Excerpt:
In the city of Del Mar, near San Diego, most agree the train tracks must move off eroding bluffs. But debate over its new route has stalled the project while climate change raises the risks…
Perched atop craggy bluffs in a beachside city north of San Diego, a railroad line offers passengers a sweeping view of the Pacific Coast. But the ground beneath it is crumbling.
No one denies the problem, but a fight over how to solve it highlights a broader challenge, and a worrisome reality, for California residents: how to adapt to climate change that threatens coastal living, a way of life that has long defined the state’s identity, from its economy to its culture.
The segment of track on the bluffs in Del Mar, Calif., connects San Diego to the rest of the state and the country, and is part of one of the busiest intercity passenger rail corridors in the nation. But the bluffs are eroding rapidly, and the track in some places is now only a few yards from the cliff edge.
Officials and residents in Del Mar and nearby communities broadly agree that the tracks need to be moved, but argue over where they should go. The debate has slowed progress, even as climate change accelerates the risks to the bluffs and the rail line.
On Friday, local representatives on the board of the county’s regional planning agency — the San Diego Association of Governments — voted to narrow the potential alternatives to four options, down from more than a dozen that were assessed in a recent report. But a final decision remains far off.
“It’s at a dangerous point, and with all the bureaucracy involved, it makes us wonder whether it will even be in our lifetime before it’s solved,” Barbara Myers, a former Del Mar school board member, said of the problem. She lives near the proposed location of a tunnel entrance to relocate the rail line, and she worries about toxic fumes or the possibility of street collapses.
With sea levels rising and stronger waves battering their shores, many other communities like Del Mar see a need to adapt, but are finding the options difficult.
Cliffside homes and apartment buildings teeter on the edge, some of them abandoned or demolished preemptively because of the threat of collapse from erosion. Infrastructure has taken a beating up and down the California coast: Sections of scenic Highway 1 have closed repeatedly because of landslides, and the Santa Cruz Wharf, a popular tourist attraction, was torn apart by towering waves in December. Communities are racing to protect shrinking beaches, reinforcing them with barriers and dredging sand from other areas in an effort to maintain and replenish them.
“The situation in Del Mar is a microcosm of a larger battle that’s unfolding,” said Charles Lester, a former official with the California Coastal Commission, a state agency that manages development along the coastline. He now directs the Ocean and Coastal Policy Center at the University of California, Santa Barbara. “What are we going to prioritize and try to maintain as these environmental changes happen?”
