On the edge of a solution for bluffs
San Diego Union Tribune – San Diego,CA,USA
Local residents who are familiar with it are so impressed that they have
suggested that the city replicate it at the popular Beacon’s Beach in
Leucadia. …

ENCINITAS – On the grounds of the lotus-domed Self-Realization Fellowship is a secret that could be the answer to a coastal homeowner’s worst nightmare – bluff collapse.That happened to the retreat in 1942, when its Golden Lotus Temple slipped off a waterlogged blufftop in Encinitas and fell partway down a 100-foot slope.

The temple was dismantled and hauled away. Today, a plaque marks the temple’s original location.

The fellowship’s misfortune did not end there. Several more landslides occurred in ensuing years because groundwater soaked the bluffs from the inside and ocean waves eroded them from the outside.

In the 1980s, the fellowship came up with a simple three-pronged plan to stop the bluff collapses:

Drill wells and install pumps to send groundwater away from the bluff face and into a city storm drain that runs through the fellowship grounds.

Plant deep-rooted vegetation on the bluff face to hold the sand together.

Build a 1,500-foot-long wall of boulders, or riprap, at the toe of the bluffs to dissipate the crashing waves.

Since then, the fellowship grounds have survived heavy rain and high seas that have caused slides elsewhere along the fragile Encinitas coastline.

“They are doing something no one has done yet,” Encinitas Mayor James Bond said. “And it is something everyone can do.”

Simple and effective

The Self-Realization Fellowship was founded by Paramahansa Yogananda, a native of India who traveled to Boston in 1920 for an international conference of religious leaders.

Yogananda headed west to Los Angeles and, in 1925, established the international headquarters of the Self-Realization Fellowship, which teaches a mixture of Hindu scriptures and Christianity.

Yogananda often stopped to picnic at the Encinitas property, with its spectacular ocean view, on his way to San Diego to hold services. In the 1930s, a follower bought the 17 acres and built the Hermitage, which became a second home for the swami.

In 1937, Yogananda built the Golden Lotus Temple just 10 or 15 feet from the bluff’s edge, featuring a bird’s-eye view of the endless ocean, the crashing waves and soaring seabirds.

After the temple slid off the cliff, the fellowship’s monks and nuns consulted with experts and eventually devised a bluff-saving plan. It was hardly rocket science. If anything, their system is a combination of old-fashioned wisdom and equipment aided by modern geological research.

The innovative dewatering system uses garden-variety rubber hoses, pumps and human vigilance.

There is no computer system anywhere on the grounds to warn the monastics of an impending disaster, said Brother Anilananda, a co-administrator of the Encinitas campus.

As low-tech as it may sound, the system has worked wonders, Anilananda said. Visitors who come to meditate at the fellowship’s lush blufftop gardens and koi ponds can feel safe.

“We are tremendously relieved,” Anilananda said. “Otherwise, we’d still be figuring out what to do.”

Not an easy start

Before the system was installed, things were less than serene under the fellowship’s lawns.

Water accumulated under the low-lying Second and K streets adjacent to the grounds and crept westward, leading to the collapse of the temple, said Steve Aceti, government and community relations representative for the fellowship.

In 1981, the monastics got permission from the then-San Diego Coast Regional Commission – later replaced by the umbrella California Coastal Commission – to build the riprap wall at the bottom of the bluff. The ring of protective boulders cost the fellowship $270,900.

That same year, in an apparently misguided effort to smooth out and stabilize the bluffs, the fellowship graded them without a permit.

Workers suspended a bulldozer from a crane at the blufftop and ended up causing 3,500 square feet of bluff between J and K streets to topple under the weight of the heavy equipment, a San Diego Coast Regional Commission report stated.

The fellowship was fined $15,000, an unprecedented amount at the time, and ordered to plant vegetation on the bluff face.The monks and nuns experimented with 51 varieties of plants and narrowed their choice to acacia and atriplex breweri, also known as saltbush, because they are drought-resistant and can tolerate salt air. The revegetation project cost $2,400.

In 1983 and 1986, the fellowship instituted the system’s most unusual element: wells equipped with pumps to move groundwater away from the bluffs and into storm drains. Two wells, one as deep as 85 feet, are used today with pumps activated by the water level. As an additional precaution, the monastics built about 20 small monitoring wells scattered around the property that are checked twice a week to gauge the situation.

Locals impressed

Today, the fellowship’s bluff-protection system still has the support of the state Coastal Commission, which restricts the use of bluff-protection devices unless there is an emergency.

“I haven’t heard any problems about it,” said Lesley Ewing, a senior coastal engineer for the commission.

The bluff-saving methods are known to few outside the campus. The system’s design is not well-recorded and mostly consigned to the monastics’ memories and old government documents stored in warehouses.

Local residents who are familiar with it are so impressed that they have suggested that the city replicate it at the popular Beacon’s Beach in Leucadia. City officials are examining how to shore up the crumbling 85-foot-tall bluffs that are threatening a parking lot at the top and a trail down the cliff face.

The city has taken the suggestion into consideration and is drafting a final environmental review for the Beacon’s project. However, city engineers say the geological structure of the Beacon’s bluffs may be different from the fellowship’s, and for now, they suggest a sea wall.

Not everyone is a fan of the fellowship’s measures.

Todd Cardiff, an advisory board member of the Surfrider Foundation’s San Diego chapter, criticizes the riprap for taking up beach space that could have been used for recreation. Cardiff also contends that it keeps the ocean from doing its natural job – eroding the bluffs to make sand for beaches.

“We prefer that everybody locate structures far enough away from the bluffs to not need bluff-protection devices,” Cardiff said.

But the fellowship already has been built, Brother Anilananda said. His goal now is to keep the Hermitage standing. Paramahansa Yogananda lived there for many years before his death in 1952, writing his “Autobiography of a Yogi” there. It is also an annual destination for pilgrims from 50 countries, Anilananda said.

The fellowship ultimately would like to add sand to the beach below the serene campus, widening it and making it harder for waves to eat away at the bluffs.

“Dewatering is only part of the solution,” Aceti said. “With sand replenishment, the waves will not reach the bluffs except during storms.”