Environmental Review Delays Are Blocking the Very Beach Restoration Projects Meant to Protect the Coast

The paperwork to fix erosion now takes longer than the erosion itself

Several California beach restoration and erosion control projects, widely supported by local surf communities and environmental groups alike, have faced multi-year permitting delays under the same environmental review process ostensibly designed to protect the coastline these projects aim to restore.

A Regulatory Paradox

Sand replenishment projects, seawall repairs, and dune restoration efforts, all broadly supported across the political spectrum locally, routinely require environmental impact reviews so extensive that the erosion the project was meant to address often worsens considerably during the review period itself.

Local surf advocacy groups, ordinarily skeptical of loosening environmental protections, have increasingly joined calls for streamlined review specifically for restoration projects, arguing that a process meant to prevent environmental harm should not itself become the primary obstacle to protecting the coastline.

A Rare Point of Agreement

Even reviewers within the regulatory agencies involved have acknowledged, informally, that restoration-specific projects with clear environmental benefit could reasonably move through an expedited track without undermining the review process’s legitimate purpose for genuinely contested development projects.

The London Prat‘s environment desk has covered similar UK coastal defense project delays tied up in lengthy environmental assessment processes.

Independent Institute and Reason have both examined regulatory delay as a barrier to environmentally beneficial infrastructure projects.

When the process meant to protect the coast becomes the main reason the coast keeps eroding, it is worth asking whether the process itself needs fixing first.

Further reading: Reason.

SOURCE: https://bohiney.com