This year’s report focused on emergency structures to protect buildings from coastal erosion. Jetties, sandbags and other coastal armoring can protect buildings, but can amplify beach erosion.
“We see areas like parts of Neskowin or Gleneden Beach, for example, where due to riprap structures, there are parts of the beach that are no longer accessible at high tide and might not be at all in the future," said Taylor Wood, with the Oregon branch of Surfrider.
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Wood said Oregon’s rules about emergency shoreline hardening are better than most other states, including Washington and California. But, she said there are loopholes that allow those emergency structures to become permanent.
“They're written to be a response to an emergency and understood to be just temporary," said Wood. "But we've seen that in every case we looked at, they just then became permanent structures.”
Oregon has had 29 emergency armoring permits in the last 10 years according to the report, and most were issued during a major erosion event in 2021.
Wood said there's concern this winter because of the El Niño that could bring high tides and increased erosion, forcing property owners to get more emergency shoreline hardening.
Oregon is updating its rules around building things on the ocean shore. Wood said she'd like to see the state require landowners to look at alternatives to prevent erosion before building a seawall.
