Prolonged closure of beloved Sonoma County beach poses dilemma for new climate era

Stengel Beach in northern Sonoma County is a beloved spot where runoff from winter rains cascades onto the sand and rocks, drawing both residents and visitors seeking out the rugged beauty of Northern California’s coast.

But access to the beach has been shut since 2021.

That’s when the county closed off the only way down the sheer ocean bluff — an aging, wooden staircase that leads to a large rock buried in the sand.

The staircase was shut due to safety concerns and officials say any reopening is at least year away.

“A lot of people are pretty frustrated,” said John Reis, a homeowner in The Sea Ranch, the planned community that spans 10 miles of the coast here.

Beach access along these otherwise private and weather-beaten bluffs has proved challenging before. Other beaches in the area are showing signs of aging public infrastructure, according to the county parks department.

But Stengel Beach appears poised to serve as a primer for county officials as they struggle to balance Californians fiercely protected right to coastal access with costly upgrades needed to keep pace with dramatic transformation of the landscape fueled by climate change.

Reis and his neighbors have spent over a year calling on county officials to repair and reopen the path to Stengel Beach. The county’s slow pace is “bewildering” for the community, Reis said.

But county officials say restoring access via the stairs isn’t so simple.

Steps have come loose, the abutments are rotting away and the staircase’s location — perched on a rock battered by the wind and sea — is a challenge.

“The engineering, it’s significant,” said David Robinson, park manager with Sonoma County Regional Parks. “It’s a beast of a stairway.”

Beyond the complexity of the infrastructure itself are the demands of building something to withstand the onslaught of sea level rise.

“As we look at the coastal changes, sea level rise, how do we make something that’s resilient?” Robinson said.

At Stengel Beach, the dilemma carries even greater symbolic significance because of its location within The Sea Ranch. This is where a battle over access to the shoreline decades ago spawned California’s coastal protection movement.

After losing their bid before the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors for public trails into the private enclave, local activists led by Petaluma veterinarian Bill Kortum took their fight to California voters, resulting in the 1972 ballot initiative that created the California Coastal Commission and, later, the Coastal Act, which protects the shoreline and public access.

The two-year impasse at Stengel Beach has drawn the attention of advocates beyond the far northern Sonoma Coast.

“Coastwalk is very concerned about how long this access point closure will last,” said Una Glass, board president of the Sonoma County-based nonprofit group that campaigns for public coastal access statewide.

Sonoma County Supervisor Lynda Hopkins, whose district includes The Sea Ranch, said she visited the beach in October and suggested the county’s parks department find a way to temporarily reopen the stairs.

“The challenge is that the engineering solution is tremendously costly for access to a small beach that is not heavily utilized,” Hopkins said. “At high tide often these beaches don’t really exist.”

Regional Parks must balance projects at smaller beaches like Stengel Beach with the demands of maintaining more popular strands like Doran Regional Park to the south in Bodega Bay, Hopkins said.

The county is responsible for 13 beaches and access points along its coastline, Robinson said. Stengel Beach is considered a coastal access point.

“We’re committed to providing that access and we’re trying our hardest to do it the right way,” said Robinson. “We apologize to the public for the lack of access up there, but we want to do it right.”

Reis acknowledged there are other beaches in the area, including Black Point Beach, Pebble Beach, Shell Beach and Walk-On Beach, but said Stengel Beach is special because it offers a quiet escape from crowds.

“They’re really overrun with folks and one of the things that we’ve enjoyed particularly about Stengel Beach is that it’s not,” Reis said.

The spectacular beauty is another draw.

“None offer the incredible tide pooling and beautiful waterfalls after rains of Stengel Beach,” Reis added in an email.

Since the beach’s closure in the spring of 2021, the county has allocated $75,000 to cover the cost of consulting engineers. Delayed by the January rainstorms, engineers visited the site in early February, Robinson said.

The county expects those consultants to provide engineering plans in the next three or four months, Robinson said. After that, the county will have to request construction bids, secure permits and line up funding before construction can start.

“We’re hoping that we can at least begin construction in 2024,” Robinson said. “And our ideal is to have it done in 2024, 2025.”

Glass, the Coastwalk board president, said the group understands the closure at Stengel stemmed from safety concerns.

“It is not appropriate to provide coastal access to the public via stairs that are unsafe,” she said.

“The crucial question is, how will the state help local government to fund the ongoing cost of repairs to public access infrastructure in light of the escalating impacts of sea level rise and climate change?” Glass added.

The county usually looks to multiple funding sources for such projects, Hopkins and Robinson said. Those can include state and federal grants and money from Measure O, the countywide, voter-approved sales tax that supports park maintenance.

But tapping any of those sources is still a ways down the road.

In the meantime, residents are worrying the project will fall further down the county’s to-do list.

“They’ve got all sorts of very challenging situations to deal with beyond just some stairs of the beach,” Reis said.

You can reach Staff Writer Emma Murphy at 707-521-5228 or emma.murphy@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @MurphReports.