Beach Access to San Onofre Restored After Two-Month Closure
After two months of being inaccessible, the roadway at San Onofre has finally reopened. As the Orange County Register reports, the dirt access road leading to the break opened to local surfers on Monday.
The road to San Onofre originally washed away at the beginning of February. The dirt roadway had already been steadily eroding for months, but then a broken drainage system started to flood the toe of the slope and accelerate the process. The final straw came when a heavy storm sent water streaming down the hillside and the pathway succumbed completely.
“It’s devastating,” State Parks Superintendent Scott Kibbey told the OC Register. “We’re trying to wrap our heads around a solution to find a way to fix this as soon as possible. It’s impassible. You can not drive a vehicle around that right now.”
Then, in mid-March, California State Parks and Camp Pendleton announced that they would begin repairs on March 25. The process was predicted to only last only a week, and officials said the road should be fully restored for vehicles by early April 1.
“It is important, because it is an incredibly popular and well-known area for surfers and it is a lot of effort on State Parks to make sure it is accessible. It is an ever-growing battle,” State Parks Superintendent Kevin Pearsall told the OC Register.
Though this round of repairs has now been completed, it’s still far from the end of the drama regarding accessibility to the iconic beach. A 50-year lease deal between the Department of Navy and California State Parks for the use of San Onofre State Beach expired three years ago, but was given a three-year extension that sunsets on Aug. 31. With the looming deadline comes a negotiation over who will retain stewardship of the land, State Parks or the military. If the military does regain control of the area, the next question is what does that mean for the public’s access to the region, which includes not only San Onofre, but Trestles.
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