This is largely necessary in San Diego County because a major source of sand replenishment has been suppressed: natural erosion of the soft sand bluffs that back the beaches. At the top of every accessible bluff there is a phalanx of small palaces, maintained -- though often left unoccupied -- by an ever-growing class of billionaires, and now protected from nature by steel-reinforced concrete seawalls built upon nominally public property below.

The dredging projects are of course not paid for by the private owners whose seawalls necessitate them, but by the public.

The walls themselves, while nearly invisible to palace occupants, present as egregious eyesores to the ordinary citizen trying to enjoy what remains of the beachfront below:

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=solana+beach++seawall&t=ipad&iar=i...

This is pretty common with iconic beaches. Waikiki in Honolulu is also not natural, and in fact uses sand from southern California.

> dunes attract the homeless

Interesting to contrast with Cardiff, where the dune strip is narrow and exposed to view. No homeless, but occasional rip-rap or sand supplementation -- contrary to the article, the dune topography does not appear self-sustaining.

On the positive side, the snowy plover are about the cutest seabird you'll ever find: https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Snowy_Plover/overview

Not all writing is about just giving the facts.

I thought this was an interesting piece on the mistakes of our past, some education on beach and sand dunes formation, and a lovely journey through a topic I had no knowledge of.

Why be so dismissive?

The sand dunes formed over just 9 years. Imagine how much bigger they will be in 20, 50, or even 100 years. Why be so short sighted?

You also selectively cut off part of the quote about the eggs. That was in the first year, it goes on..

"Since then, plovers have returned to the restoration area to nest. Native plant species that had not been planted by The Bay Foundation appeared too, such as pink sand verbena. And dune beetles – which provide food for foraging birds, and which had not been observed in baseline surveys prior to restoration – also arrived."

Not everything happens instantly. We're lucky to live in a time of rapid innovation. Some things just take time.

There’s a 120 page report with all sorts of detailed analysis reviewing 5 years of the project linked in the article.

If this is genuinely your concern you should read that before deciding whether they are trying to rip anyone off.

Coming to the conclusion that this is not a worthy effort because you read a feel good general news piece and it only included feel good general news seems silly at best.

I lived there between 2004 and 2023 and used to walk along the perimeter of the protected dunes. I didn’t know it was an intentional engineering. I thought it was just natural dunes that were protected. They are really beautiful and you get a sense that there’s a lot of life going on. I always wondered why Santa Monica’s beaches were so barren otherwise compared to other beaches on both the West and East coasts. Good read!

I don't know about Californian beaches, but I know in Australia there's been a significant attempt to replant native grasses in erosion zones and maintain the dunes. The article describes this.

What do you mean by "solutions that would work"? The solutions to coastal erosion are many, but one that sometimes works is having dunes held together by plants with sturdy root systems.

What would you suggest? Like it’s not a magic bullet, the plover won’t be parting the oceans like King Canute or anything, but, er, yes, a living beach is more resistant to coastal erosion than a desert; that’s fairly uncontroversial, I thought?

How does this preclude other solutions?