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Using R44 And A PowerBook To Bust Illegal Seawalls

Posted by timothy on from the what's-wrong-with-seawalls dept.

Sylvestre writes "Ken Adelman, founder of TGV and Network Alchemy, is using a digital camera, helicopter, and a Power Book to take a high resolution photograph every 500 feet down the California coast. The goal? Busting people putting up illegal sea walls. The catch so far? One golf course covered the beach with boulders. Also of note: the website has 44 gigs of photos so far, runs on solar power, and is Microsoft Free. Best use of technology I've seen all month!"

6 of 361 comments (clear)

  1. I'd love to see the "panoramic" from THOSE shots by Goldenhawk · · Score: 5, Interesting

    It would be way cool to have a panoramic photo of the entire California coastline (or at least a significant chunk of it) from stitching all those photos together. Set it up as a movie, perhaps, offering a sort of virtual fly-by of the coastline.

    --
    --Brandon / Split Infinity Music

  2. This hardly has anything to do with privacy. by ApharmdB · · Score: 5, Interesting

    It's the coastline after all. The guy isn't breaking into buildings or anything. What he is doing is similar to a very successful group called the Riverkeepers. This group patrols the Hudson river and watches for people dumping illegally. They are the major reason that the Hudson is no longer the utter cesspool it used to be. The government has neither the resources nor the inclination to enforce its environmental laws and so it is up to citizens to do so.

  3. Re:Why illegal? by tbmaddux · · Score: 5, Interesting
    All seawalls should be illegal, because they destroy beaches. The landowner is tossing rocks or concrete into the ocean to save his property at the expense of the public's property (the beach). Seawalls erode beaches by burying them under rubble (placement loss), reflecting waves and causing the sand to move offshore (active loss) and by simply being there as the shoreline retreats towards them (passive loss). Read works by Orrin Pilkey, or visit The Surfrider Foundation for more information.

    Many states have banned seawalls altogether. Washington is one example. In California, seawall construction is limited by the Coastal Act (passed in 1976) but not banned, and there are major loopholes, including language to protect "existing structures" which can be creatively interpreted to include a structure that did not exist yesterday but exists today. More and more of California's coastline is being buried under seawalls, including "temporary" "emergency" piles of rock that are never removed because the Commission doesn't have a police force to patrol the beaches. What little monitoring there is, is done entirely by volunteers, and kudos to them if they've gotten access to a helicopter to keep our beaches from vanishing!

    --
    Can't you see that everyone is buying station wagons?
  4. Re:Where ? by pheph · · Score: 5, Interesting
    http://www.microsoftfree.com:

    and I quote:

    <meta name="GENERATOR" content="Microsoft FrontPage 4.0"> <meta name="ProgId" content="FrontPage.Editor.Document">

  5. Re:Brilliant use of tech by dubl-u · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Yes, it's much better to deny people the right to build a seawall, and then spend billions on beach reclamation projects. Sheeeeerrrrr Genius (said in Wile E. Coyote voice)

    This is wrong twice over:
    1. The coast is a public resource. A private landowner who was dumb enough to build on eroding land doesn't have any right to build a seawall, anymore than a guy who lives next to a public park has a right to put in a vegetable garden.
    2. Putting up seawalls will require you to have beach reclamation projects. Beaches are the result of erosion; if you stop erosion, the existing sand gets washed away.
  6. Building on the Beach by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting
    I could care less about your 400,000$ beachfront house that is going to be rubble the next time a hurricane/el nino/mudslide comes around anyways. Repeat after me - never build that close to a beach.

    What gets me about this is how old (and obvious) this advice really is.

    Whatever one's religious beliefs, it's generally agreed that Jesus know how to make a point. In Matthew 7:24-27, he tells a story about a foolish builder who builds his house on sand. His audience would have laughed about that.

    Two thousand years later, people with degrees in architecture and engineering build houses (and even gigantic hotels) out on the beach, and then try to get the government to spend tax money on beach replenishment when the ocean comes to take away their buildings.

    People who put up seawalls should have to pay to remove them, and people who build on sand shouldn't get one penny of my tax money for beach replenishment. Building on sand is so obviously stupid that anyone who does it doesn't deserve any help from anybody.