Sediment and Sand
Gibraltar Dam recently had its centenary to no fanfare at all. A monument to the lack of foresight in all things Santa Barbara, it was built and started filling up with sediment. It was raised but was still filling up with sediment at an alarming rate. A number of debris dams were built which are all filled in with sediment.
Go humans, you are enlightened and beautiful.
All of that millions of tons of sand stuck back there over the last 100 years would have fed the South Coast Littoral Cell, that now depleted river of sand flowing along our $outh Coast beaches from the mouth of the Santa Ynez River to the mouth of the Mugu/Hueneme Submarine Canyon.
Ooooopsie-daisy. We are such a clever species!
Did anyone else notice how nice and fat Leadbetter Beach became when the sand from the Montecito Debris Flows that was trucked to, and dumped at Goleta Beach got there? It took two years for the bumps of sand dumped at Goleta to wash down to Lead. It was pretty funny to watch. Hope Ranch Beach fatted up nicely but is now back to depleted.
Fat Leadbetter! Fat Leadbetter! Think of all that sand we will gotta dredge to keep the harbor open! Maybe that can be trucked back to Go-Let-A!
Go humans! Go humans!