The Lifeguard Tower at 1st point tumbled into the creek today. The creek had been gently flowing into 1st point for some time and the 7+ inches of rain in the Santa Monica mountains over the last 48 hours left a 10 foot sand cliff where the tower stood for the last ? years.
Don’t think I want to know what is in all of that runoff water.
Da Cat is probably celebrating the destruction of the tower…
The water at Malibu is as beautiful as ever. The water in Malibu Creek is beutiful as well. Even back in the 70’s there was a little fishing going on in the creek, and supposedly even back then a select few knew of steelhead still trying. It’s a lovely creek which stays watered pretty much all year thanks to treated water releases from the Tapia Water Treatment Plant in Malibu Canyon. One night about 12 years ago my wife, brother-in-law, and I drove to pick up his dog from some friends who were dog-sitting for him. Their house was back in the creek area, and we had to cross a dry creekbed (concrete causeway across bed) to get there. We socialized for about a half hour, then returned. When we go to the creekbed we found the water approxmately 4 inches deep - 0" - 4" in a half hour. There was an upstream release. Dick Van Dyke was nice enough to let our Honda cross. I understood his driving a Suburban as the water looked to still be rising. The water in Malibu is still beautiful, but the microbes started life as Taco Bell burritos in the Valley…
That morning(wednesday i guess) after a surf at Topanga,I was talking with a lady while overlooking the creek. She was giddy to see the water starting to break through the sand berm. She said she is a bioligist and was talking about the steelhead that do still come up both Malibu and Topanga creeks. She also mentioned some guppies that live there at Topanga that are an endangered species.It is hard to imagine anything surviving in that normally stagnant slew. I wonder what the impact on Malibu would be if they ever take down the dam(Rindge?) in Malibu Canyon. What would millions of cubic yards of silt and rocks do to Surfrider. I understand there is some talk about doing that. pm
PM- yep, a friend of mine works with LA dept.of h2o and power.studies are being done to se if it is feasible.Also, as you may know,Matilija damn is being given the same scrutiny, and may well be the first,I think in this state, to come down.Good for steelhead, good for c-street…
The Matilija situation would be much better overall, should it happen, than initial results for Malibu. It’s just the geography factored with/against the Tapia treatment plant. Malibu seems to hold it’s own as far as beach shape and wave shape goes, but the water quality should carry it’s own Orange Alert Level. I suspect the water quality at the 'Bu would only go down should more water flow more unobstructed dowm Malibu Creek, as that could only keep the lagoon mouth open more often. The Ventura River would probably have a couple of nasty years or storms but would almost certainly start replenishing the Ventura coastline with sand and rock. It would, no doubt, impact the whole California Street/Fairground surf area somehow…and now that I think about it I don’t know if there are any studies on that aspect of the subject. I’d hate to see that epicenter added to the other list: Stanley’s, South Jetty, Oil Piers…
I’m no expert but it seems to me that sand, rocks and gravel being redeposited in the C-Street/fairgrounds area would be a good thing.
Replenishment should be good. I’ve never seen a photo of the whole Fairground beach area before that dam was built in the 40’s (?). That little nagging tone of worry in my last post came when I thought about what an increased flow of sand/silt/rock out of the rivermouth might do to an existing rock bottom. There would be a new variable. The place has practically been like a skatepark for years. Contrast that to a beachbreak where the bottom changes…or for those fellow geriatrics think of Malibu after those 1969 storms. What was that, something like a year or so before it broke decently again? Simple fear of the unknown. Since that last post I looked a little deeper though, and I guess flow charts have been made which don’t show a huge change, so somebody is at least looking at it. But saving the bikepath along the point wouldn’t be my priority… And more on Malibu Creek - when I said “treated water” I mean partially treated sewage. It’s fit to irrigate with but not to drink or cook with. Think of smelly water which leaves heavy white mineral deposits on your car.
this fairground surfing term . … sorry . … grew up right like 200 feet up from the highway at Temescal Canyon . … and just never heard that term. and another. . … what is a steelhead? This probably not relatable, but it seemed well neat . . but . . like something is going on. First time in 30 years Thursday, 15 feet from the sand, 20 feet from the cement boardwalk - a getty before where the old lighthouse used to be - cars whizzing by maybe 1000 feet from . … the biggest school of moving dolphins I have ever seen. So close to shore that I was tempted to walk 20 feet and ask one of them if I could have a ride. Because they were moving, and I have seen dolphins (at first I did think these were small black whales because they were big and dark)BUT NEVER EVER right practically at the shore.And it seemed like they were looking for something, and no, not food. I mean the turns were happening and they would go the other way for such a brief period . . . like it seemed half a minute, and then turn completely again, back and forth.They’re too intelligent to, I would think, pick some very shallow area, oh I don’t know. Is that common? Do dolphins, do they go back and forth? Because the navy found out in their anti-sleep research (so people can I guess take a helicopter from here - to Baghdad - and back here in one short trip, seriously is what the article said the research was for.) that dolphins separately use the right and left hemispheres of their brain, at the same time - to for instance swim and sleep at the same time.Because they are mammals right, and they need to breath??? It mostly said they were able to control the separation of both sides - no it didn’t say that - it pointed specifically at the ability to use one side versus the other, at the same time - to do whatever. Pretty alot more ambidexterous than I am that’s for sure. They looked like such trippy creatures. Back and forth. Perhaps that is some normal feeding movement. It was really amazing though. It was the first beautiful clear day after the rain, the water looked great and so did the sky. And then today I noticed perhaps 500 baby gulls at the same spot running like mad - maybe they were egrets - but I have never seen that either - I mean the shore was packed from half the length of one of those tiny rock getties there, to the next. First time in my life, I have ever seen either of those things on the beach at Temescal - and it was the exact little jetty that the mother sea lion picked to swim into this last winter . … when the temp was real warm - and the pelicans and gulls at Malibu were keeling over, with their necks wrapped around themselves. She was helped - and taken care of - this sea lion. But on Friday with the dolphins, and today with the baby gulls - this particular getty seemed like it had something good in it. And no I am not about to say some cocoon spaceship came up out of the water . …with the old Gelsons customers walking two by two. . … even though that’s how I sound.