News Update: September 22, 2006

SURFRIDER FOUNDATION RELEASES 2006
“STATE OF THE BEACH” REPORT

San Clemente, CA (September 22, 2006) – The Surfrider Foundation has released its 2006 State of the Beach report.

Now in its seventh year, this annual report is quite simply the most comprehensive document chronicling the health of our nation’s beaches and coastlines in existence today. In addition to providing a wealth of links to various studies, reports and websites pertaining to coastal health, the report contains a list of “beach health indicators” such as beach access, water quality, erosion, beach fill, shoreline structures, beach ecology and surfing areas, for 24 of our nation’s coastal states and territories.

“With six years of reports and monitoring behind us, we feel that we have established a baseline in assessing the beach health for nearly all of the coastal states across the country,” says report author Rick Wilson. “This report is a resource which can help both our chapters and members of the public in their efforts to further beach and shoreline conservation.”

As in previous years, the 2006 Surfrider Foundation State of the Beach report spotlights a critical coastal issue - shoreline armoring; those ugly concrete walls, piles of rocks, sand bags and geotubes that have all too often covered up and replaced much of the natural beach, dune and bluff areas that used to exist.

Over 10% of the California coastline is armored, with a much higher percentage of armoring occurring along Southern California beaches. Unfortunately the pace of armoring is not slowing down, as evidenced by Surfrider Foundation efforts to fight new seawall or revetment projects in Solana Beach, Dana Point, and Santa Cruz in California; Barview, Oregon; Ocean Shores, Washington; Hull, Massachusetts and elsewhere.

All across the country, beaches and communities such as Spreckelsville Beach on Maui; Indian River and Broward Counties in Florida; Humarock Beach and Falmouth, Cape Cod in Massachusetts; Folly Beach, South Carolina; and the Hamptons and Fire Island in New York are left to suffer the consequences of past armoring projects, including sand loss, shoreline retreat and beach ecology impacts.

Ironically, many of these projects were put in to “protect the beach.” However according to Wilson, “In a natural setting, beaches usually do not need protection. It’s the only when we see buildings being placed too close to the shoreline and other projects such as dams and jetties, which interrupt the natural sand supply, that we start seeing conditions that typically precipitate armoring.”

Surfrider Foundation’s 2006 State of the Beach report can be found online at www.surfrider.org/stateofthebeach

The Surfrider Foundation is a non-profit grassroots organization dedicated to the protection and preservation of our world’s oceans, waves and beaches. Founded in 1984 by a handful of visionary surfers, the Surfrider Foundation now maintains over 50,000 members and 64 chapters across the United States and Puerto Rico, with international affiliates in Australia, Europe, Japan and Brazil. For more information on the Surfrider Foundation go to www.surfrider.org.