When government gets in the way... thankfully

Half Moon Bay Review/Mark Noack, 9/8/13. "Illegal beach ramp spurs rebuke, San Gregorio home dumps 7,200 yards of dirt."

Permit to build a private ramp to the beach,
what could possibly go wrong?

"A San Gregorio homeowner is being ordered to remove an estimated 7,200 cubic yards of dirt that was apparently dumped to create a private ramp down to the beach. ....  The work lacked any permits, and county officials say they are perplexed why the property owner would go forward with the illegal project.

The cliffs near San Gregorio are exceptionally steep, and Monowitz predicted the ramp dirt would have washed away in a short time. More evident was the project’s landscape damage, said Madeline Cavalieri, North Central branch manager for the California Coastal Commission. The project pushed more sediment into the ocean, blocking part of the beach and possibly causing the bluffs to become unstable, she said. The property owner would be responsible for “buttoning up” the site to get it as close as possible to its original condition, she said.

....  A prior property owner reportedly built the ramp just days before handing off the property to a buyer. ..... The new owner is reportedly cooperating with government officials by applying for emergency clearances to clean up the damage. "   Read article. 

Related -  KQED/Science "QUEST", 10/28/10. "San Gregorio State Beach is approximately 40 miles south of San Francisco near the junction of Highway 1 and 84. This beach is one of my favorite spots along the coast between Half Moon Bay and Santa Cruz. The rocks that are exposed in the beach cliffs are a marine sedimentary unit called the Purisima Formation which was deposited between 2.5 and 7 million years ago. The part of the Purisima that is exposed in the cliffs at San Gregorio beach is called the Tahana Member and is characterized by fine-grained sandstone and silty mudstone. The whiter layers contain a lot of volcanic ash that are chemically similar to volcanic deposits of the Snake River Plain in southern Idaho."  Note:  Photograph of cliffs near San Gregorio Beach from this article.

Related -  Institute for Humane Studies/George Mason University, What is Libertarian?  According to Libertarianism:  A Primer by David Boaz, Free Press, 1997. "Libertarianism is the view that each person has the right to live his life in any way he chooses so long as he respects the equal rights of others. Libertarians defend each person's right to life, liberty, and property-rights that people have naturally, before governments are created. .." 

Posted by Kathy Meeh