When a big hurricane swell rolled through the region last week, big waves and high tides moved piles of rocks and splashed onto the train tracks in south San Clemente, prompting train service to stop for a few days.
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As Orange County Transportation Authority leaders were gearing up to hold meetings later this week for the community to review a resiliency study underway to deliver a menu of longer-term solutions for protecting the tracks where they run oceanfront, crews started hauling in more large rocks to build back up the buffer along the railway now.
“Ongoing inspections show that additional stabilization is needed now as the storm surge washed away some of the existing riprap and additional rock placement was deemed necessary to ensure the track remains stable,” OCTA spokesperson Eric Carpenter wrote in an email. The agency is working with Metrolink to make emergency repairs as a “precautionary response” in two locations near the border with San Diego County, near Cyprus Shore and further south, he said.
Work is expected to continue through next week, stopping Metrolink passenger service from Monday, Aug. 10, through Friday, Aug. 14, with no trains planned between Laguna Niguel/Mission Viejo and Oceanside. No alternate bus transportation will be provided. Amtrak Pacific Surfliner and freight trains are expected to continue their service.
Some local officials and community members say they are growing increasingly frustrated, arguing there has been a cycle of emergency repairs on repeat the past five years: When tracks get hammered by waves, railcars drop boulders alongside the train tracks in an attempt to hold the ocean back. They say promises that solutions will include the replenishment of sand to rebuild lost beaches seem to be forgotten.
The latest attempt to safeguard the rail comes just ahead of a community meeting on Monday, Aug. 10, that will discuss the final draft of the Coastal Rail Resiliency Study that started three years ago.
Several times since 2021, crews have piled up big boulders in an attempt to build up a protective barrier to hold back the ocean’s force — efforts some argue are worsening the situation by changing the wave dynamic to scour sand further offshore and worsening erosion, while negatively impacting the nearby famed surf break Cottons and covering up valuable beach space.
Carpenter said the current emergency stabilization work is ongoing and the total amount of rock ultimately needed is not yet known.
“It’s important to note that OCTA is working within the existing footprint of riprap and largely replacing the rock that has been washed away rather than adding large amounts of new riprap,” Carpenter said.
The railroad has operated along this coastline since the 1880s, and rock has been used to help protect portions of the rail line for approximately a century, he noted.
“What has changed significantly in recent years are the coastal conditions,” he said. “Repeated storms, king tides, powerful ocean swells and ongoing erosion have narrowed beaches and increased pressure on the rail line, requiring emergency repairs at vulnerable locations.”
The current work is being conducted through the California Coastal Commission’s emergency permitting process, he added. These emergency measures are intended to maintain safe rail operations while OCTA continues advancing longer-term resiliency solutions, he said.
According to Coastal Commission staff, OCTA had not applied for an emergency permit for the most recent work, but did notify the state agency as the work got underway.
The two agencies met on Friday morning and OCTA officials said they intended to submit an emergency permit application to include work done in the area since June. If approved by commission staff, it will be discussed at the commission’s September meeting.
Over the past few weeks, an estimated 1,000 tons of rip rap have been added to the site, according to commission staff.
“We understand the need to maintain rail services along this important corridor. That’s why we’re advocating for a long-term solution that protects public safety and eliminates the need for future armoring,” said the commission’s spokesperson, Joshua Smith. “In the meantime, we’re urging OCTA to coordinate more closely on this type of emergency work and prioritize replenishing beaches with new sand.”
The rocks are being hauled in by rail car between 10:30 p.m. and 5:30 a.m., according to OCTA.
“The amount of rock they are dropping is significant; it’s pretty relentless,” said Jeff Berg, founder of Bring Back Our Beaches. “Enough is enough.”
Berg said the grassroots group has given OCTA the benefit of the doubt as it talked about plans to bring sand to the area to add a buffer between the ocean and the tracks.
But no sand has been put on the beach in south San Clemente — just more rocks, Berg said. “It truly is a code-red situation down here. The amount of rip rap that has been placed, it’s a lot. Along that stretch, you don’t have any beach.”
The beach was once so wide, it had volleyball courts and vast sand space, with the beach allowing access to San Onofre State Beach to the south.
The Cottons surf break has diminished in recent years, backwash now refracting off the rocks, sucking more sand away from the beach, Berg said, and the beach is impassable.
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“When you have water breaking on rock, there’s zero opportunity for a beach to form. The sand can’t stick,” he argued. “Then you have, increasingly, water encroaching on the rock and going over, and under the tracks, which is a real problem.”
He argues that San Clemente and Dana Point have both been able to acquire and bring in sand to eroded sections of their coastline, but OCTA’s proposed sand plan seemingly remains in limbo.
“If OCTA had more motivation and they really wanted to do it, they could get it done,” Berg said.
Sand is an important part of protecting the coastline and plans are moving forward to place approximately 540,000 cubic yards of sand along the San Clemente shoreline, Carpenter said.
That plan is moving through the lengthy environmental review and permitting process required before the larger sand placement can occur, he said, adding OCTA continues to work with regulatory agencies on evaluating potential sources of compatible sand. A final source for the full nourishment effort has not yet been selected.
Earlier this week, San Clemente Councilmember Victor Cabral and City Manager Andy Hall spoke with the executive director of the California Coastal Commission, Kate Huckelbridge, asking for her help in allowing the city to lead efforts to address beach erosion, Cabral said.
Among their greatest concerns, he said, is stopping the cycle of emergency repairs.
“Our beaches are being destroyed in real time right in front of us,” Cabral said, noting a recent visit to Cottons and Cypress Shores beaches. “The train tracks are actually worse off in San Clemente wherever they (OCTA) have laid the revetment. The best beaches we have right now are down by the pier where we laid sand.”
The city teamed up with the federal government to complete in 2024 a sand nourishment project 20 years in the planning that brought 240,000 cubic yards of sand to the area around the pier, and has also since done smaller sand projects on the north end of town.
“Wherever there’s sand, the tracks are safe; wherever the OCTA is remediating, they’re the worst they’ve ever been,” Cabral argued.
In discussing the issue with Hucklebridge, Cabral said he and Hall emphasized that the OCTA repairs are not emergencies but instead “a very predictable event. “We know that when the king tides come again next December and January, they have the same problem. The revetment does not work; all our experts have told us that.”
Cabral hopes the commission will support San Clemente leading the sand replenishment and no longer allow OCTA to use rocks as the solution to stability.
“We’re asking the coastal commission to impose hefty remediation fines or money on OCTA and assign those proceeds to the city of San Clemente to allow us to do the work,” he said. “We’ve done it, we have the permits, we have the expertise.”
The OCTA has a project budget of approximately $310.5 million, including federal, state and local funding, to address the damage along the tracks, according to Carpenter. Design, construction, sand nourishment, emergency stabilization and other project activities remain underway, he said, so funding continues to be expended as eligible project costs are incurred.
Now the OCTA is ready to gather feedback on a draft feasibility study evaluating longer-term — in the 30-year range — solutions to protect rail service along South Orange County coastline. And the state has its own study of even longer-range proposals for the important rail line.
The OCTA-led Coastal Rail Resiliency Study evaluates potential strategies to help protect the 7 miles of the Los Angeles–San Luis Obispo–San Diego, or LOSSAN, rail corridor through Dana Point and San Clemente to the San Diego County line. It evaluated 23 concepts including rail-foundation improvements, alternative railroad materials, catchment walls, bluff-stabilization measures and a range of beachside protection approaches.
The beachside concepts include sand placement and, depending on location, could also include repairing or restoring existing riprap, creating engineered revetments or seawalls, or combinations of those approaches.
The study does not approve a specific construction project, but will provide a toolbox of “potentially feasible options for further consideration,” Carpenter said. Any specific project would require additional engineering, environmental review, public outreach, permitting, funding and future approvals.
“Overall, OCTA recognizes that there is strong interest in protecting the rail line and the coastline. We share the goal of protecting both,” Carpenter said. “The emergency work is necessary to keep passenger and freight rail service operating safely, while the Coastal Rail Resiliency Study and separate state-led long-term planning process are intended to develop more sustainable solutions for the years ahead.”
But Berg said more meetings are not necessary, “You’ve heard everything you need to hear from San Clemente. We don’t want more rock, we want sand.”
An in-person meeting to discuss the draft Coastal Rail Resiliency Study is scheduled for 5 to 6 p.m. on Monday, Aug. 10, at San Clemente Hall and a virtual meeting at 5 p.m. the following evening. A final report is expected by summer 2026.
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