ARTIFICIAL REEF

by Marcus Sanders

INTRO

"In time, after more research, I feel certain that specialized surfing reefs could be perfected to produce practically any type of wave desired. A number of reefs along the California coast, for example, would not only offer surfers variety, but also relieve the terribly overcrowded situation that exists." -- Ron Drummond, Surfer magazine, 1967 "There's always a use for waves. If there's going to be waves, there are plenty of surfers in Southern California who aren't going to let them go unused." -- Bruce Gliniors, referring to the yet-to-be-built Pratte's Reef, Los Angeles Times, April 2000 So what the hell happened? In 33 years, we've managed to hot-wire Tibetan monks to the suits on Wall Street, you can grab an SAT phone and call your mom from the middle of the Indian Ocean, wetsuits are so flexible and warm that Chris Malloy can actually do a cutback in Antarctica, surfboards have been deconstructed to the point of absurdity, guys are using Jet Skis to tow themselves into inhumanly large waves and we still do not have an artificial surfing reef in the United States. That is not to say we've never tried. As early as the '50s, Capo Beach local and one of the first surfer-environmentalists, Ron Drummond, experimented by piling up some rocks at low-tide Doheny and watched as waves broke over them with the incoming tide. Not a surfable wave, sure, but as a physics experiment, plenty successful. Just as man could destroy waves (Drummond fought Killer Dana's demise tooth and nail), man could create them. Since then, artificial-reef building has become the stuff of campfire legend. Stories abound of surfers abandoning their old VW vans in the lineup at minus low tides and hauling blocks of cement into the ocean under the full moon. No surprise, really -- surfers tend to be pretty simple in their wants (i.e., more waves now!) and who can help daydreaming about transforming that mushy closeout down the road into a perfect throbbing peak. Sure, there's a whole plethora of breaks in the states that have been enhanced or created by man -- think the Newport Beach groins, Sebastian Inlet, Sandspit, Santa Cruz Harbor, Half Moon Bay Jetty, Fort Point and even Huntington Pier. But those were little more than lucky accidents. Generating more tube-time has never been high on the Army Corps of Engineers' to-do list, even though it could easily build us a dozen more Kirras if it wanted to.

THE SCIENCE OF STOKE

Back in the late '60s, when most surfers were too busy reveling inside crystal cathedrals to think about the physics of what they were riding, a coastal engineer by the name of Kimo Walker was setting his sights on figuring out what specifically made a good wave. To gather the data he needed, he focused on the most obvious place -- the North Shore of Oahu. Walker dove the reefs of the North Shore during flat spells and meticulously mapped their contours and irregularities. Come winter, he compared his notes to the waves he'd see -- imagine a late drop at Pipe measured not in increments of fear, but coefficients and vectors -- and began arriving at some conclusions. It has been said that once you are able to name something, it loses part of its magic -- but Walker was a scientist, not a sorcerer. And while he viewed waves as a gift to be cherished, he saw no reason not to deconstruct their components: peel angle, length of ride, wave shoaling, breaker height, breaker type, wind effects, bathymetric features, manmade features. Every part of that last wave you caught at T Street can be scientifically quantified and, according to Walker's findings and dozens of coastal engineers worldwide, recreated. (Whether or not the world actually needs another T Street is a different question altogether.) From the beginning, it was obvious that Volkswagen buses were not the answer. Apart from the fact that they would make waves that would break down instead of break (sorry, couldn't resist), rusting metal is not the healthiest ingredient for Mother Ocean, nor the most durable. So the race was on to find ecologically sound materials that would still be solid enough to make waves break. The choices boiled down to three: sandbags, granite or polyethylene piping. Sandbags are being used at the nearly completed reef at Narrowneck in Queensland, Australia; granite is being used over in West Oz at the world's first completed artificial surfing reef, at Cable Station and sandbags are going to be used at the soon-to-be-built Pratte's Reef in El Segundo, California. Each material has its advocates and critics, and each material has different strengths and weaknesses. Sandbags have the experimental advantage: they're relatively cheap, and if the thing doesn't work, cut 'em open and let the sand flow where it may. Plus, landing headfirst onto a sandbag hurts slightly less than a lobster dive on a chunk of granite. But, as Brook Hayes, engineer and director of the Artificial Protective Reef Company says, "Don't name any reef after me unless it's granite, 'cause I want the thing to stay -- I can't see sandbags lasting longer than five to 10 years." Gary Ross, Oxnard local and owner of Highwave, competed against coastal engineer Dave Skelly for the Pratte's Reef contract with the idea that polyethylene pipe (which is the stuff they use to cover transocean fiber optic cable) would be better than sandbags because you can build a floating reef that would be able to move around to take advantage of all available swell. But the simplicity of sandbags won out in El Segundo.

PRATTE'S REEF

In a saga that has made some interesting bedfellows (surfers teamed with the Army Corps of Engineers) and some unlikely opponents (surfers conflicting with various environmentalists), we may finally see America's first artificial surfing reef in the fall of 2000. Pratte's Reef, named after Surfrider Foundation cofounder Tom Pratte, is slated to be built at Dockweiler Beach in El Segundo in October 2000 as part of a landmark wave mitigation agreement between the Surfrider Foundation and Chevron. Back in 1984, an exposed Chevron outfall pipe near El Segundo was in danger due to heavy wave action. Chevron wanted to protect it by surrounding it with a jetty. But you can't just chuck a jetty up wherever you feel like it, even in industrialized El Segundo, so it went for an emergency permit with Los Angeles County and the Army Corps of Engineers. The permit contained the stipulation that Chevron must monitor the surf for 10 years, and if it were found that the jetty adversely affected the waves, it would have to somehow make up for it. Fast forward to 1994. After collecting all the data, the Surfrider Foundation found that the jetty had indeed ruined the surf -- what was once reasonable beachbreak was now just shorebreak closeout. Then it became just a matter of figuring out what the Band-Aid would look like. After much debate, it was finally decided that Chevron's penitence would be in the form of 2,000 tons of sand-filled geotextile bags placed in a triangular shape about 300 feet offshore. Problem is, the $300,000 that Chevron was supposed to have paid in 1994 was just received last May, due to a nightmare of permitting and bureaucratic hassles. And $300,000 in the year 2000 doesn't buy as much sand as it would have six years ago. Dave Skelly, the designer of Pratte's Reef, originally planned on 4,000 tons. Now he has to cut that amount in half. Will it still work? "Pipeline is not coming to El Segundo," says Chris Evans, executive director of the Surfrider Foundation. While it's sure to make some kind of wave break, it's not going to be aquatic alchemy -- turning shit into gold costs more than $300,000 these days. Skelly and Surfrider are in the process of looking for an additional $50,000 to make the reef break in a wider range of conditions. But, as surfers in Australia are finding out, perhaps no amount of money will be able to replace what nature provides with a few well-placed rocks.

CABLE STATION, WEST AUSTRALIA

Back in 1976, when Kimo Walker was publishing his studies on artificial reefs, a West Australian by the name of John Balgarnie helped come up with some plans to build a reef in Perth to relieve overcrowding in the surf. Balgarnie passed off his plans to the Ministry of Sport and Recreation, where they were promptly lost in a bureaucratic shuffle for the next quarter century. The idea was picked up again in the late '90s, and now that the 10,000 tons of granite have settled in the sand at Cable Station, the surfing world is keeping a keen eye on it. In a recent issue of Deep magazine, Kerry Faulkner spoke to a bunch of locals about the reef and found that Balgarnie wasn't impressed. Despite years of research, Balgarnie asserts, the granite is sunk too deep to take advantage of all available swell. Whether or not sandbags would've been a better option remains to be seen. But not everyone agrees. Six-time state representative and Perth local Toryn Crocker was originally very skeptical, but after surfing the reef with a solid swell, said, "I was one of those who said it'd never work, but I'll be surfing it again." It's been said that the reef has increased the number of surfable days per year at Cable Station from around seven to 70. Was the two million bucks worth it? Local surfer Matt Szwedzicki would have rather seen his tax dollars spent elsewhere. He surfed the novelty spot with some size, and said, "This is a good swell, but it's average and crowded. I thought it would pick up more swell than it does." Szwedzicki raises an interesting point. One of the major reasons to build artificial reefs, other than making better waves or controlling erosion or providing habitat, is to reduce overcrowding in the surf. If you throw a reef into an already crowded beach scene such as Perth, where do you think every surfer and his brother are going to end up? It seems like you'd have to build a dozen reefs until you notice a difference. While the world's first artificial surfing reef may be less than a raging success, there is little doubt that it will be the benchmark for reefs to come. Twenty years down the road, when there are more wave pools and artificial reefs than actual waves, we could look back at Cable Station's granite monstrosity and shake our heads at how far we've come.

NARROWNECK, QUEENSLAND, AUSTRALIA

Over on the other side of the continent, just north of Surfer's Paradise on the Gold Coast, lies a different sort of reef. Its primary purpose was to prevent sand erosion from the tourist infested-beaches of Surfer's Paradise. The fact that it might improve the surf was secondary. Narrowneck, at the bargain price of about $6 million (US), was funded by the local council as a way of using the 500,000 yards of sand per year that accumulates at the northern end of the Gold Coast. Designed by oceanographer Kerry Black from the University of Waikato in New Zealand, the reef -- which is, at the time of writing, about 80 percent finished -- is made of sand-filled geotextile bags placed in a lopsided V-shape about 50 yards offshore. "It's heaps better than it was before; the wave before was real crumbly," says local ripper Dale Styvie, who surfed it on a good day in June this year. Styvie said there was a north swell that made the lefts unreal. But north swells aren't so common in northern Queensland, which leaves a relatively mushy right during south swells. Still, many argue that any wave is better than no wave. And as the Austral winter hits, the wave seems to be working more frequently. It's not all gee-isn't-technology-great, though. Longtime local Chris Sheenan, who's been surfing Narrowneck in relative obscurity for the past 10 years, says, "The reef, while it may be a surfing savior and beach replenishment god, has created a circus within the water. People come from everywhere to surf 'The Reef.'" While Sheenan understands the ocean is free for all to use, he mourns the death of what was once a mellow (if less-than-perfect) surf spot. But at least the sandbags seem to be serving their primary purpose. The flow of sand, which generally strips popular beaches to the south, has slowed, though it will be years before an accurate analysis can be made. Sand has a funny way of being unpredictable, which is part of the reason that research for artificial reefs has been so difficult. And if research is difficult -- each reef was in the bureaucratic rip for at least five years -- the impact of artificial reefs on the environmental movement has been downright splintering.

SAVE OUR SHORES

"I think in an urban setting, you have to manage the shoreline because man is here. When man is in the picture, there are no natural processes. To sit here and say the erosion of the shoreline is natural is really bullshit..." -- Dave Skelly, coastal engineer, Surfrider member, designer of Pratte's Reef Skelly is not alone. Shoreline management, especially in hyper-developed Southern California, has been going on for years -- notice that big wall of offshore rocks in Long Beach that has permanently rendered the city dead flat? Thing is, Skelly and other proponents of artificial surfing reefs believe that the reefs themselves can take the place of surf-destroying, shoreline-management structures like breakwalls. Most coastal engineers have found that a well-placed pile of sandbags (or granite or piping) will dissipate wave energy up to 80 percent before it reaches the shore. So not only do you get a surfable wave, all those lovely beachfront homes are kept safe from the shifting sands. As Brook Hayes, director of the Artificial Protective Reef Company says, "It's one of the few technologies that benefits everyone -- fishermen, homeowners and surfers." But Chuck Mesa from the Army Corps of Engineers, who is generally in favor of artificial reefs, raises an interesting point. "There's a liability issue that nobody's been able to get around. If somebody gets hurt [at the reef], the court is going to have to settle this at some point. It has to be resolved that way, and that's unfortunate." In a nation where a burglar can sue a homeowner after falling through his skylight in a botched robbery attempt, there's no doubt that someone, eventually, will look for a big payoff if he face-plants on a reef built by the state. This means that spots such as Pratte's Reef, in due time, may be no different than Vans Skate Park: pay a fee, sign a waiver and go out and rip.

ALL THAT PEELS IS NOT GREEN

"I'm really opposed to artificial reefs because we as surfers are a tiny, tiny personal interest group. And if we promote these kinds of coastal structures, we have no credibility when we try to oppose those structures proposed by other more politically powerful groups. We're either gonna defend the natural coast or we're not." -- Dr. Gordon Labedz, former Surfrider president, head of the Los Angeles/Orange County Sierra Club. Labedz is also not alone. When asked if she thought reefs were better than breakwaters, Donna Frye (ardent environmentalist and wife of San Diego surfing legend Skip Frye) said, "That's sorta like saying we screwed up so badly, so this'll be the lesser of two evils." But Frye is not without solutions. "Let's bring in the third option, which is to restore it to how it used to be and quit bargaining things away," she says. Frye's concerns are not unfounded. Wetland mitigation -- where developers get to develop on protected wetlands somewhere in exchange for restoring wetlands somewhere else -- has been a battle throughout the United States for decades. And Pratte's Reef is essentially the same thing. Chevron is saying "whoops, we ruined this wave, so hereีs another one to take its place. Sorry 'bout that, guys." If we figure out how to reproduce waves -- whether for shoreline erosion or surfing or both -- the challenge then becomes slightly more philosophical. Is it fair for a company to destroy a surf spot if it promises that it'll build one to replace it? "The Surfrider Foundation is dedicated to enhancing waveriding opportunities in ways that will not adversely impact nearshore ecosystems." -- Chris Evans, executive director of the Surfrider Foundation. The present configuration of the Surfrider Foundation lies somewhere between Skelly's well-managed shoreline and Frye's back-to-the-beginning idealism. What began as a surfing group concerned with the environment is now a group of environmentalists who surf, which means that they have to walk a thin line. Sure, we all want more waves, and we don't want houses and train stations and other infrastructure to fall into the ocean, but will the artificial reef affect the nearshore environment? Surfrider is behind Pratte's Reef because it's its baby, but Surfrider's realistic about the possibilities. "It's an experiment, and we're gonna be very honest about documenting and studying the installation and effects of it," Evans says. All environmental controversy aside, another concern about artificial reefs is more surfer-specific. Suppose that manmade reefs work -- shorelines are saved, guys are getting faux tubes every day, crowds are dispersed, etc. How will these fake breaks affect the surfing experience?

NUTRASTOKE

Think about the effect of technology on your experience as a surfer. Chances are, you're reading this very story on a computer screen, and with one click, you can shift gears and check the surf at your homebreak, or in Indo, and click right back without skipping a beat. You're probably rarely, if ever, cold in the surf. Your board is probably lighter than your bicycle. Hell, chances are you've already surfed a place that's been created by man or wished you could surf one that's gone. The days of stone axes and koa trees are over, but does that mean we should run out and plug into a virtual reality machine that simulates Pipe? Tom Seth, a Los Angeles County lifeguard and longtime El Segundo local, has issues with a Brave New Surfing World. "I am extremely against [Pratte's Reef] going in at my house," he says. Seth goes on to say that while the surf is dubious at best most of the time, with local knowledge and diligence, he can still score a few magic days without all the crowds found at nearby Manhattan Beach. Despite Kimo Walker's deconstruction of waves and coastal engineers' keenness to recreate them, many surfers still don't know or care to know how to measure the shoaling coefficient of their local spot. They may know that a rip will form at a certain spot after a summer storm or that what looks to newcomers like closeout shorebreak is actually a makable right barrel. They may look at a scalloped beach such as Hossegor and instinctively know that it's insane beachbreak without ever having seen a topographical drawing of the place. There are enough waves and ocean in the world to keep a man occupied for more than one lifetime. That is not to say that artificial reefs will be the downfall of the waterperson. But as the polyethylene pipes or granite or sandbags are placed strategically up and down the coast, and we can check 'em all via our laptops, the danger becomes less about missing a session and more about missing the magic and mystery of a real wave.