Donations to a Bolinas committee devoted to rescuing a portion of road at Surfer’s Overlook, which experts say could collapse without swift intervention, skyrocketed this week. After collecting roughly $150,000 over the last six months, the committee raised more than $250,000 in the past week, with the help of a generous matching donation.
That brings the total funds raised to just $25,000 shy of the estimated $500,000 price tag of the project’s critical first phase—a retaining wall repair—which is now all but guaranteed to happen this year. If the overlook fails before a repair is complete, the project will become impossible, proponents say.
Erosion at both the toe and the face of the cliff is endangering the overlook, a favorite spot to pause and gaze out at Bolinas Bay, Stinson Beach and city lights. If that section of road collapses, Terrace Avenue would become impassable, and Mesa Road—itself prone to closure—would provide the only route to and from the Big Mesa.
The cost of the first phase of the project is falling almost entirely on the small community of Bolinas, and it’s likely that a much more expensive second phase will, too. But fears over emergency access and hopes of preserving a cultural resource are driving locals—about 100 of whom showed up for a Saturday morning presentation at the Bolinas Firehouse—to rally to save it.
The county has committed to undertaking construction work on the first phase this year, if the community raises half a million by July 1, the beginning of the fiscal year. In addition to performing the repair work and covering permitting costs, the county has committed $50,000 to the first phase of the project. But the county also points out that it already spent $1.3 million repairing the top of Terrace at Overlook Road in 2012 and has no legal obligation to save Surfer’s Overlook because its loss would not eliminate access to private property.
Relying solely on Mesa Road to access the Big Mesa—the town’s largest neighborhood and the site of the fire department, utility district headquarters and a preschool—is a big concern for the fire district. “This is a critical access road,” Anita Tyrrell-Brown, the chief of the Bolinas Fire Protection District, told the crowd last weekend.
Chief Tyrrell-Brown said that in the past five years, the road has been closed five times because of fallen trees—once for 13 hours. When trees take down power lines, nothing can be touched until P.G.&E. arrives. Without the use of Terrace, the fire department would be cut off from everywhere save the Big Mesa. Chief Tyrrell-Brown worried particularly about downtown Bolinas, home to a host of wooden buildings she described as “piles of kindling.”
In the event of a countywide emergency, such as a storm wreaking widespread damage, she added that Bolinas would be far down on P.G.&E.’s priority list. “We are small potatoes,” she said.
The fundraising committee has also argued that the road and the overlook are an integral part of the town. “For many of us,” a flyer says, “using Terrace and seeing the ocean is a simple but important part of our day. Are we willing to lose that tradition?”
Saving the overlook would be conducted in two phases. The first phase consists of a repair to a 1967 retaining wall, portions of which are deteriorating. The job could probably be done in just a few weeks this fall. (Because it is considered repair work, it will not need a coastal permit.)
That phase should buy another 10 to 15 years to figure out the second phase: stabilizing the overlook and the road with a 75-foot wall that mimics the appearance of the bluff, currently projected to cost $6 million.
Yet if the overlook collapses before the first phase can be done, the entire project will become impossible, town officials say. A 2011 report on the bluff, by Sanders and Associates Geostructural Engineering, said that its height—75 feet—means that equipment must be staged both at the bottom and top of the bluff to install the wall. It also said the overlook, in its present state, could fail in three to five years.
That’s the main reason why proponents, who fear another rainy season could catalyze a collapse, have stressed the importance of getting the work done this year. “We can’t lose the integrity at the top of the bluff,” said Jennifer Blackman, the general manager of the Bolinas Community Public Utility District. Her agency already moved a high-pressure water line away from Terrace, which cost roughly $500,000, because of the overlook’s instability.
The crowd at Saturday’s meeting seemed largely supportive. An announcement by a relatively recent newcomer to Bolinas who pledged to match all donations made in the next seven days drew a hearty, extended applause, as well as a few whoops and hollers of support. (The man, who did not wish to be identified in the newspaper, later clarified to a fundraising committee member that he would match $150,000, to reach the short-term fundraising goal.)
Meg Simonds, a Big Mesa resident who drives down Terrace every day, said after the meeting that she supported the project, largely because of emergency concerns. “I just donated more than I was going to, because of the [matching] pledge,” she said.
Since November, when the fundraising committee formed, locals have contributed amounts ranging from $20 to $25,000, committee chair Ralph Camiccia said at the Saturday meeting. “It’s what you can afford, but not so you can’t eat tomorrow morning,” he said at the meeting. (The Bolinas Community Center, a nonprofit, is the fundraising committee’s fiscal sponsor.)
The committee will accept donations surpassing its goal for the first phase—both in case of unforeseen costs and to start saving up for the full bluff project.
It is unclear who will fund the longer-term stabilization, and the looming $6 million project is a concern for some in Bolinas who have limited income and see a tax or bond measure as inevitable. “It’s hard for those of us who work for a living to pay another $100 on a tax bill,” one woman said.
Others asked why the town was not pursuing another option, like building another road altogether, farther away from the crumbling bluff.
A working group focused on the Surfer’s Overlook conundrum, formed in 2010 and comprised of representatives of the fire district, the utility district and the county, investigated the possibility of an alternate route. But the complications involved in such an effort, such as securing easements over private property, dissuaded the members from pursuing it.
“Believe it or not, the best option is what you’re seeing today,” said Dave Kimball, a board member of the fire district who was part of that working group.
Supervisor Steve Kinsey, who was at the meeting, and other organizers also strived to frame the money issue as one of self-reliance. “From my perspective…the D.N.A. of Bolinas is to get things done, to be a self-sufficient community,” Mr. Kinsey said. He added that attempts to secure partial funding from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, failed.