June Coastal Commission Report: San Diego

By Mitch Silverstein

The Commission touched down in San Diego June 10-11 with a need for speed, clearing a two-day agenda instead of the usual three. As always, your Surfrider California policy team was onsite to advocate on behalf of our state’s ocean, waves, and beaches, for all people. Read on for a few highlights from the June meeting.

First up: Surfrider strongly supported approval of San Diego County's interim fix for the transborder sewage fumes that have plagued south San Diego communities for years. The project extends two pipe culverts at the Saturn Boulevard crossing of the Tijuana River to reduce aerosolized hydrogen sulfide and other toxic pollutants. Through our San Diego-based Clean Border Water Now (CBWN) program, Surfrider is highly involved in the fight for environmental justice in the San Diego/Tijuana cross-border region. For a full readout on this particular project and how it will immediately improve the lives of the surrounding community, see the tabs below.

The Saturn Boulevard river crossing (credit: Surfrider Foundation and Veriditas Rising)

Wednesday brought a few other items worth noting. The Commission heard an informational update on the pupping sea lions at La Jolla Cove and the volunteer docents working to protect them. It approved changes to hours at 35 San Diego beach and bay parking lots, while securing meaningful access mitigation for several lots whose hours had already been changed without benefit of a CDP. And marking the Coastal Act's 50th anniversary, staff walked through how the Commission has permanently conserved nearly 12,000 acres of coastal habitat through its offer-to-dedicate program, plus the story behind one of the first vertical public accessways it ever secured, back in 1974 in La Jolla.

Moving on to Thursday. During general comments, Surfrider representatives updated Commissioners on the Orange County Transportation Authority's (OCTA) efforts to armor San Clemente's coastline to protect its rail line. Surfrider recently commissioned independent coastal scientist Bob Battalio to study the impacts of OCTA's emergency armoring, which has already destroyed the beach between San Clemente and Trestles, and its plans to keep armoring northward into the southern half of San Clemente State Beach. The report examines the long-term impacts of those proposals alongside the feasibility of nature-based alternatives that could preserve both the beach and the railroad for now. But preserving San Clemente's southern beaches over the long term will ultimately mean relocating the railroad as seas rise and erosion worsens.

In a very different kind of coastal access question, the Commission also approved an application from Goldenvoice (the Coachella folks) and the City of Santa Monica for a two-day beachfront music festival just south of the pier. The event will close off public access to a stretch of beach, but the Commission secured an impressive community benefits package in return: free tickets for underserved communities, ocean safety programming, cultural activations, and a commitment from the City to reinvest part of its profits into beach amenity improvements. We submitted comments highlighting that Commission reviews like this one are now under threat. Recent state legislation took aim at key Coastal Act protections, including the Commission's authority to independently review large private beach events like this one. We've included a deeper look below, because this permit matters well beyond the festival itself.

Yours truly, along with Surfrider co-conspirators Alex Ferron-Mignogna & Michaela Coats

Interim Fix for Toxic Sewage Fumes at Tijuana River Hotspot

Summary

The Commission unanimously approved the County of San Diego’s application to extend two pipe culverts at the Saturn Boulevard crossing of the Tijuana River. The project will redirect contaminated river flows so they are released below the river's surface during low flow conditions, rather than freefalling six feet into the channel and generating the turbulence that drives toxic off-gassing. Weir caps on the remaining culverts and riprap stabilization of the extensions round out the engineering approach.

The permit was approved with six special conditions addressing multi-agency coordination, habitat and species protection, water quality, and the preservation of public access along the California Coastal Trail, which runs along Saturn Boulevard.

Surfrider, as a co-leader of the Tijuana River Coalition, submitted a letter of support on behalf of the coalition's more than 65 member nonprofit and community-based organizations representing residents, youth, workers, families, scientists, doctors, businesses, and recreators throughout San Diego County and Tijuana. Coalition representatives also spoke in favor of the project at the hearing.

This is an interim measure. The County is pursuing a longer-term, more permanent solution, and Surfrider and the larger coalition will remain engaged to ensure that work moves forward.

‍Why You Should Care

The Saturn Boulevard crossing has become ground zero for one of the most serious environmental justice crises in the United States. Every day, millions of gallons of untreated sewage, industrial waste, and trash flow across the U.S./Mexico border, releasing hydrogen sulfide and other toxic air pollutants at concentrations several times higher than California's state standard. The communities bearing that burden include low-income families, children, immigrant communities, and Latino and Tribal populations who have endured these conditions for years with too little relief.

Exposure to hydrogen sulfide causes respiratory and gastrointestinal illness, headaches, nausea, and fatigue. This is the daily reality for neighbors living alongside the Tijuana River Valley, who also contend with a coastline that has been closed to the public due to sewage for the greater part of three years and a severely depressed local economy driven by this persistent transborder pollution crisis. Taken together, they reflect one of the most consequential environmental justice failures in the country.

Today's approval is a meaningful step forward. But it is only a step, and the fight for a permanent solution continues.

Santa Monica Music Festival — Commission Approves with Conditions

Summary

The Commission unanimously approved a coastal development permit for a two-day ticketed music festival on Santa Monica State Beach, proposed by Goldenvoice LLC and the City of Santa Monica as co-applicants. The festival, scheduled for a non-holiday weekend in late September 2026, will draw up to 35,000 attendees per day to the Sandbox area south of the Santa Monica Pier, enclosing roughly 900,000 square feet of public beach across a 15-day setup, event, and breakdown period.

Staff recommended approval with conditions addressing public access, community benefits, coastal wildlife and habitat, water quality, and transportation. Key conditions include a prohibition on single-use plastic foodware and packaging, a requirement that complimentary shuttle service be available to beachgoers as well as ticketholders, and a robust Community Benefits Program providing free coastal access and recreation programming to underserved communities across greater Los Angeles. The paid festival cannot proceed unless the free community benefit elements are confirmed as committed to go forward.

Why You Should Care

This permit matters beyond the concert itself. AB 1740 (Zbur), as originally written, would have allowed the City of Santa Monica to self-certify an event like this one without Commission review. That exemption has since been removed from the bill, and this application shows exactly why it had to be. The entire standard would have been whether the event "unduly obstructs" public beach access and traversal of the shoreline. That's it. And the City, which is a co-applicant that negotiated the license fee and profits from the event, would have been certifying its own financial interest with no independent check.

Here’s what independent review delivered. Commission staff secured mitigation for acknowledged impacts to public beach access, environmental conditions protecting water quality and coastal wildlife, a prohibition on single-use plastics, and a Community Benefits Program with a genuine environmental justice focus. None of that is guaranteed under local permitting. The Coastal Act does not rest on any one city being well-intentioned at any given moment — it exists because California's coastal resources are consistently threatened by exactly the kind of local financial and political pressures visible right here. This approval is a demonstration of why that independent layer of review matters, and why proposals to exempt entire categories of coastal development from it deserve serious scrutiny.

By Mitch Silverstein

Mitch served in various volunteer leadership positions with the San Diego Chapter before being hired on as Chapter Manager in 2018. In 2022, he transitioned to the chapter’s policy role. In 2025, he's broadened his scope as California's Senior Policy Coordinator.