California Against the Sea: Visions for Our Vanishing Coastline

by Rosanna Xia

Overview

From a celebrated environmental journalist, the riveting exploration of sea level rise along the West Coast through human stories and ecological dramas.

2023 Golden Poppy Award Winner for Nonfiction, Chosen by the California Independent Booksellers Alliance

"Viscerally urgent, thoroughly reported, and compellingly written—a must-read for our uncertain times." —Ed Yong, author of An Immense World

"When do seawalls make sense? And when is it better to give in to the tides? [...] In California Against the Sea, Xia [...] writes about the difficult realities of trying to incorporate fairness into our tally of costs and benefits." —The New Yorker

Along California’s 1,200-mile coastline, the overheated Pacific Ocean is rising and pressing in, imperiling both wildlife and the maritime towns and cities that 27 million people call home. In California Against the Sea, Los Angeles Times coastal reporter Rosanna Xia asks: As climate chaos threatens the places we love so fiercely, will we finally grasp our collective capacity for change?

Xia, a Pulitzer Prize finalist, investigates the impacts of engineered landscapes, the market pressures of development, and the ecological activism and political scrimmages that have carved our contemporary coastline—and foretell even greater changes to our shores. From the beaches of the Mexican border up to the sheer-cliffed North Coast, the voices of Indigenous leaders, community activists, small-town mayors, urban engineers, and tenacious environmental scientists commingle. Together, they chronicle the challenges and urgency of forging a climate-wise future. Xia’s investigation takes us to Imperial Beach, Los Angeles, Pacifica, Marin City, San Francisco, and beyond, weighing the rivaling arguments, agreements, compromises, and visions governing the State of California’s commitment to a coast for all. Through graceful reportage, she charts how the decisions we make today will determine where we go tomorrow: headlong into natural disaster, or toward an equitable refashioning of coastal stewardship.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781597146197
Publisher:	Heyday
Publication date:	09/26/2023
Pages:	336
Sales rank:	108,469
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.30(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Rosanna Xia is an environmental reporter for the Los Angeles Times, where she specializes in stories about the coast and ocean. She was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 2020 for explanatory reporting, and her work has been anthologized in the Best American Science and Nature Writing series.

Read an Excerpt

EXCERPT FROM CHAPTER 1

The water churned with a wild energy one winter morning in Imperial Beach, and the people living along Sea-coast Drive had been forewarned. Sandbags, stacked along driveways and sliding glass doors, lined the quiet beachfront road. Boarded-up windows cast an even darker predawn gloom. At 4 a.m., the neighborhood barely stirred, but those lying awake in bed could feel the deep rumble, then crash, as the ocean unleashed wave after big wave. It was only a few weeks into the year 2019, and the sea, burdened by melting ice and a human-altered world, was already hinting at what will become routine. A supermoon was hours away from aligning with the sun and the Earth—locking in step a fierce gravitational pull that creates higher-than-high tides. Just offshore, a network of buoy sensors had alerted UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography that, on top of all this, the surf was also syncing up to be exceptionally large.

Three scientists, shouldering a drone and other wave-monitoring equipment, hastened on foot toward a three-story condo to reckon with what this confluence was wrecking. They had parked farther away, anticipating that the road, on a thin spit of land barely separating ocean from marsh, would be inundated by midday. Puddles were already pooling one block away, and the air, dampened by blasts of sea spray, made them wonder just how forcefully the waves were breaking. They scrambled upstairs to the balcony to get a better view.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, it’s already happening!” Laura Engeman said. The beach was submerged, the sea already rushing over the seawall and spilling onto Seacoast Drive. She had thought they would have at least an hour to set up that morning, but the flood had arrived long before the highest point of the tide. Across the street, the marsh was swelling over the cordgrass as saltwater rose from all sides. Ocean and wetland were reaching for each other, remembering a time when the California coast was not hemmed in by pavement, a time when the water could still be one.

Engeman, a program manager at Scripps who specializes in getting communities to think about climate adaptation, had been tracking what she called “combined-risk events” in this big surf town. Paying attention to the waves, the tide, the floods that keep recurring, she said, could help more people understand what the ocean has in store. And now here she was with her colleagues, the clock already ticking, surrounded by this turbulent laboratory churning with new data. Right before their eyes was a window into the many pressures looming over the rest of California.

Another low boom from the ocean quaked and thundered. Her team stood by in momentary shock. There had been quite a bit of flooding here just a month earlier—signs of an already astonishing winter. But these waves right now, these swells, were much bigger than anything they had seen all season.

An oft-overlooked city on the southernmost corner of the California coast, Imperial Beach marks where the Tijuana River carves and flushes through land and marsh, the joining of two countries by the sea. There is more grit, less Malibu glitz in this seaside town, where one-fifth of the community is lower-income, and retirees on Social Security still have a shot at living the waterfront dream. Residents treading across the sand can speak through a metal fence to those in Mexico admiring the same sunset and the same white pelicans soaring overhead. The city’s prosperity lies in its public beaches and wetlands—a shared refuge for those seeking the unbridled joy of being near a body of water as vast as the Pacific.

Imperial Beach, as the story goes for so much of the state’s golden shore, began with a yearning to settle on the very edges of the sea. This sandy stretch of California had first been home to the Kumeyaay people, who for thousands of years lived with the water, the mollusks, the plants and animals nestled between the tides. Then Spanish missionaries arrived and forced their ways onto the coast, followed by the Mexican army and early Californians. By the 1880s, the area had become a summer respite for farmers fleeing the inland heat of the Imperial Valley. Wealthier vacationers flocked just up the coast to the Hotel del Coronado, a lavish display of architectural ambition that rose in 1887 atop a sand spit where jackrabbits and coyotes once roamed. The railroad roared through nearby San Diego, bringing even more people to the shore.

For decades, developers drew up plans to fill Imperial Beach’s wetlands and also transform the town with glamorous shops and homes. But efforts to build never quite took hold beyond some modest housing that popped up along the fringes of the sea. While other coastal towns thrived with tourism and resorts planted right on the sand, the community here remained largely working-class, with no grand feat of engineering to call its own. But for hundreds of sweeping acres, salt grass could continue to root itself into the muddy landscape, submerging and re-emerging with the tides. Least terns and egrets still had their nesting grounds, legless lizards their sandy soils. Stretching along the inland side of Seacoast Drive, the Tijuana River Estuary held on as the largest remaining salt marsh in Southern California.

While Imperial Beach never kept up with its wealthier neighbors, it does hold claim to another California staple: epic surf. Large colorful arches in the shape of surfboards welcome visitors by the old-school pier, where a series of retro benches tells the story of Allen “Dempsey” Holder and other surfers who, in the 1930s, ’40s, and ’50s, conquered some of the largest waves on the coast. Known as the Sloughs, this giant, unrelenting break at the Tijuana River mouth feeds off the power of both river and sea. Comparable to the outer reef breaks in Hawaii, these legendary swells were once considered the gold standard in Southern California for heavy-water surfing.

But for all this deference to marsh and ocean, human disregard for nature still seeps into the town. The Sloughs today are off-limits much of the year, contaminated by plumes of untreated sewage spilling in from Mexico. Heavy surf now means soaked roads every winter, threatening the homes and modest infrastructure that have helped the community come into its own. Those already living below sea level recall floodwaters so high after the last big storm that they had to use canoes. Imperial Beach stands to lose one-third of the town to sea level rise, but few residents have processed this slow-moving disaster that is already sweeping over their shore.

The California coast grew and prospered during a remarkable moment in history when the sea was at its tamest. The Beach Boys crooned of crimson sunsets and golden dawns, woodies, and palm trees in the sand. Laguna Beach and Malibu sparkled white, their wide, sandy beaches dotted with seashells at low tide and surf shacks mere steps from the sea. Wooden piers staked each city’s claim along the 1,200-mile shore, which beckoned to the millions who came west and felt the ocean calling.

But the mighty Pacific, unbeknownst to all, was nearing its final years of a gentle but unusual cycle that had lulled dreaming settlers into a deceptive endless summer.

[…]

Table of Contents

Coast Under Siege 

1. California against the Sea

2. Our Vanishing Coastline

3. A Town on the Edge

Saving the Golden Shore 

4. The People’s Law

5. Protect at What Cost?

6. Choosing Casualties

Missing Pieces

7. The People’s Coast

8. Overlooked and Forgotten

9. Rebirth Between the Tides

10. Relearning the Ways of the Shore

May We Open Our Eyes to Water 

11. Grappling with Retreat

12. The Little Town That Would

13. Bridges to the Future

Acknowledgments

Notes and Further Reading

Index

About the Author 

Editorial Reviews

07/31/2023

Los Angeles Times reporter Xia debuts with a vivid exploration of how communities along the California coast are dealing with rising sea levels. She describes how the mayor of Pacifica, a “stretch of seaside hamlets” just south of San Francisco that has already been forced to abandon numerous homes to the crumbling bluffs, lost his 2018 bid for reelection after supporting managed retreat, incensing those who instead wished to fortify the region’s seawall despite research suggesting it might not be enough to contain the rising sea. Other towns show what might be accomplished by implementing “all the policies being laid out by experts and state officials.” For example, residents of Marina, 10 miles north of Monterey, have committed to restoring damaged ecosystems by limiting beachfront development and relocating the town’s water treatment facility and sewer pump away from the ocean. Brief profiles of the homeowners, politicians, and scientists shaping municipal responses to climate change add color and humanity to the stories of coastal decay, and the discussion of how California’s claims of eminent domain have excluded Black people from the coast (in the 1920s, Los Angeles pushed “an entire Black beach community out of town” to build a park in Manhattan Beach) illustrate the need to build a more equitable future. It’s an unsparing look at California’s contentious battle to cope with a changing climate. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly

2023 Golden Poppy Award Winner for Nonfiction, Chosen by the California Independent Booksellers Alliance

Praise for California Against the Sea:

"What happens if, as the world warms and the Pacific Ocean rises, California’s coast and beaches drown? That’s the crisis that Los Angeles Times environmental reporter Rosanna Xia investigates in her thoughtful, balanced, deeply researched and reported California Against the Sea." —San Francisco Chronicle

"When do seawalls make sense? And when is it better to give in to the tides? [...] In California Against the Sea, Xia [...] writes about the difficult realities of trying to incorporate fairness into our tally of costs and benefits." —Daniel A. Gross, The New Yorker

"Los Angeles Times reporter Xia debuts with a vivid exploration of how communities along the California coast are dealing with rising sea levels. [...] It's an unsparing look at California’s contentious battle to cope with a changing climate." —Publishers Weekly

"Few people are more qualified to explain and analyze this landscape. Xia's reporting on this topic earned her a spot as a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting in 2020. In this, her first nonfiction book, she breathes exquisite detail and dialogue into a rich narrative held up by years of beat reporting." —Clare Fieseler, Science Magazine

"A beautifully written, highly relevant book about not just our relationship with and how we think about the natural world, but also how we relate to each other." —Book Riot

"Vivid and comprehensive [...] In California Against the Sea, Los Angeles Times journalist Rosanna Xia examines the postwar coastal development boom and the daunting challenges facing the 27 million Californians who live in the coastal zone as sea-level rise and coastal erosion become urgent facts of life." —Lookout Santa Cruz

"This is not a dry book with nonstop facts and figures. Instead, Rosanna Xia brings together a community of vibrant stories and memorable people. Through these human connections, Xia explores issues like private ownership along the coast, public accessibility to nature and the need to build resilient communities and infrastructure, even if you're not a Californian." —Karina Taylee, Citizens' Climate Radio

"Perhaps the most important takeaway from this important book is that we are all in this together. Seemingly at-odds terminology like 'managed retreat' and 'seawalls' needn’t be fundamentally at odds. Not if we acknowledge a shared set of facts and begin planning for a future California coast that will remain hospitable, not just for us, but for our children and our children’s children." —Pacifica Tribune

"A book that should be read by everyone who lives along California's coastline, and everyone who cares about this jagged, unpredictable marvel of a landscape." —California Review of Books

"Xia [...] makes a compelling case that the way California has treated its coastline for generations—as a desirable commodity to be parceled off and sold to the wealthy, or elsewhere, as a dumping ground for industrial infrastructure—was never sustainable to begin with, and this moment offers us an invitation to rethink our relationship with the ocean we cherish." —Berkeleyside

"Our coastline is shifting, far faster than it ever has before, and our love of ocean views and sea breezes is now at risk. This tension between desire and danger is at the heart of Rosanna Xia's impressive book, California Against the Sea. [...] Xia is a Pulitzer Prize finalist who investigates climate change and the coast for the Los Angeles Times, and she covers these complicated issues with a deft hand. I finished the book informed, enlightened, and even a little bit hopeful for the future." —Elayna Trucker, Napa Valley Register

"Xia's call to action is clear: to successfully navigate the challenges posed by the rising sea, Californians must rethink their relationship with the coast." —BNN Breaking

"Just as the coast defines the liminal world between land and sea, so too does Rosanna Xia's remarkable book exist in the overlap between development and erosion, between geological forces and human desire, between our ambitious past and our tenuous future. It’s viscerally urgent, thoroughly reported, and compellingly written—a must-read for our uncertain times." —Ed Yong, author of An Immense World

"This book should be required reading for Californians—and all Americans. The fate of one state's rising coastline, and what it portends for our future, will affect us all. Exquisite and wrenching, Rosanna Xia has written an essential book that shows us what we stand to lose." —Lizzie Johnson, author of Paradise: One Town's Struggle to Survive an American Wildfire

"Fans of Xia's work for the L.A. Times will recognize her virtuosic blend of propulsive boots-on-the-ground storytelling, explanatory reporting, and genuine curiosity and love for place. A profound and timely exploration of humanity’s various and shifting relationships to coastlines and the forces that shape them by one of the great environmental reporters working today." —Lisa Wells, author of Believers: Making a Life at the End of the World

"Xia's prophetic and perceptive book reveals a California coastline denied by centuries of settlers more intent on dreaming than facing the unsteady reality of the living ocean's edge. California Against the Sea is the invitation we need today to enter a future where we learn to work with nature instead of against it. Xia's message should be heeded everywhere ocean meets land." —Meera Subramanian author of A River Runs Again: India's Natural World in Crisis, from the Barren Cliffs of Rajasthan to the Farmlands of Karnataka

"In the midst of the climate crisis, can the people of California treat the rising Pacific Ocean as something other than an adversary? In California Against the Sea, Rosanna Xia argues persuasively that such a transformation is not only possible but already underway, inspired by lessons from deep history and the recent past. Rigorously reported and beautifully written, this book is a crucial guide to the future." —Michelle Nijhuis, author of Beloved Beasts: Fighting for Life in an Age of Extinction

"Xia's California Against the Sea deftly charts the past, present and future of California's changing coastlines in order to retrieve hope for more sustainable futures from headlines of environmental loss. This lucid account shows that sea-level rise is less an intractable problem than an urgent invitation to rethink our relationships with oceans and with one another. A beautiful, revelatory and prescient book." —Lucas Bessire, author of Running Out: In Search of Water on the High Plains

"Rosanna Xia's ability to move effortlessly between the journalist's voice, the historian's voice, and even the poet’s voice makes her story of our climate precarity more than an account of evidence and circumstance. The book is rife with humanity, nuanced and powerful because of it." —Obi Kaufmann, author of The Coasts of California

"I don't often recommend books, but Rosanna Xia's California Against the Sea is an exception. I was very touched and moved by her book, and I highly recommend it. It may well change how you think about our coast, our relationship to it and our responsibility for it." —Gary Griggs, Distinguished Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences at UC Santa Cruz

"In California Against the Sea, Rosanna Xia combines the best of deep dive journalism, by expending shoe leather to get out into the field and walk the coastline and by interviewing frontline community members, politicians and advocates, with explanations of the environmental science and geology to reveal both the impacts of and solutions to sea level rise that is already upending life along California's coastline. Beautifully written." —Christina Gerhardt, author of Sea Change: An Atlas of Islands in a Rising Ocean

"As a journalist, Xia is able to put into context the very complex and fluid state of land and sea. And as a Californian, she uses an almost lyrical voice in describing the problems we face along our coastline." —Jann Eyrich, author of The Rotting Whale, a Hugo Sandoval Eco-Mystery

"This is a very important book. [...] Rosanna has written a book which will resonate for decades. I am hoping that one of Governor Newsom's assistants has dropped a copy on his desk." —Jeff Battis, Sausalito Books by the Bay

"While largely focused on coastal erosion, California Against the Sea stokes a universal sense of urgency. Xia's prose is incredibly smooth and her passionate curiosity for the coastal landscape is contagious. The book's greatest triumph, however, is its focus on the conservationists working to protect the coastline, especially those from or working with Indigenous communities, emphasizing the positive impact an individual can make. This is a notable debut that deftly balances the hard realities of the present with a sense of pragmatic hope for the future." —Wesley Minter, Third Place Books, Seattle, WA

"I was worried this book would be a real downer, but I found myself incredibly inspired and hopeful [...] The stories of each community Xia highlights gives you hope that climate adaptation is possible, and that the fluctuating nature of the coast, as well as impending sea-level rise, are things we need to work with, not against." —Lesley A., Powell's Books, Portland, OR

"This book is yet another magnificent example of [Xia's] work, a must-read for Californians and anyone who has ever seen and loved a coastline." —Lauren Tyler-Rickon, Gallery Bookshop, Mendocino, CA

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