Rip Rap Information for Neskowin at the Oregon Coast

The purpose of this page is to provide written and visual evidence of some potential side effects of rip rap and its' usage on our coastline. 

In particular, we also would like to focus on the Neskowin community and its' beach. 


We would like to thank Jeff Walton, who has spent hours and hours researching the effects of the use of rip rap, on the coastline and engaging the conversation at both the county and state levels. This information is being provided by Mr. Walton at the request of many interested members of the Neskowin Community Association during the Memorial Day Association meeting.. 


Background: (submitted by Jeff Walton)

Major beach erosion has plagued Neskowin now for over 5  years. At first, the erosion was considered an anomaly. We all blamed it on an odd ball El Nino / La Nina event and assumed that the sand would come back and all would be as it was.

So, when the "Pacific Sands Condos" put in Rip-Rap to protect the building it all seemed innocent enough...after all the sand would be back next summer...Right?...Wrong. It got worse... a lot worse. Now we are in May 2003 and 600 yards of the beach has been destroyed + hundreds of thousands of dollars spent...and counting. Pictures Easter 2003

Tillamook County approved a new 1991 sub-division on a lot paralleling Corvallis Street just to the South of the Walton's house. The Walton's house to the North has been located on the East end of an active natural tidal draw since 1946 that floods every winter like clock work. This last 2002/03 winter we had 3' X 6' driftwood pass past the house over our patio thru the driveway depositing on Hawk Street.



The 6 new lots on Corvallis Street sold for $200K up to $375K for the western-most lot located right on the South edge of the natural draw. The $375K lot was purchased in 1996 and a house was built upon a standard foundation in 1997. 

On the ocean came. The western-most lot began to erode culminating into a phone call from one of the owners of the home. They wanted to Rip-Rap in front of their property and on ours to protect their home. We felt bad but we said no. The risk was too great to our house...though set back...we're looking down that draw like a gun barrel. 

  Washed logs right up to the house.

  Right through the patio

  Right out the driveway. Yes that is driftwood!!!!

Even the State of Oregon ( Steve Williams , Parks and Recreation Dept.) was skeptical that the water came back to the Walton's house. The issue was dropped though I was left a little confused as to how they could Rip-Rap at all - I thought that no home could be protected built post-1977. End of story or so I thought - until 2002

Got another call winter 2002...now the ocean is 9' from their foundation. 

Upon further research I discovered homeowners can Rip-Rap as Tillamook County exercised a little-known loop hole in state law that "local agencies" could define what was and was not "pre-1977" development. No doubt in an effort to preserve future tax base revenue sources, Tillamook County defined all of Neskowin as "Pre-1977" development whether there were buildings in existence or not. A clear breech in the spirit of state law in my opinion.

Side Note with an East Coast perspective:

Maine, South and North Carolina have all have outlawed Rip-Rap.

South Carolina's 2002 Code of Laws:

Under Title 48 Environmental Protection and Conservation
Chapter 39 Coastal Tidelands and Wetlands
Section 250 Articles 4, 5, and 6.

4. ".....without adequate controls, development unwisely has been sited too close to the system (ocean beach / dune). This type of development has jeopardized the stability of the beach/dune system, accelerated erosion, and endangered adjacent property. It is in both the public and private interests to protect the system form unwise development.

5. The use of armoring in the form of hard erosion control devices such as seawalls, bulkheads, and rip-rap to protect erosion-threatened structures adjacent to the beach has not proven effective. These armoring devices have given a false sense of security to beachfront property owners. In reality, these hard structures, in many instances, have increased the vulnerability of beachfront property to damage from wind and waves while contributing to the deterioration and loss of dry sand beach which is so important to the tourism industry.

6. Erosion is a natural process which becomes a significant problem for man only when structures are erected in close proximity to the beach/dune system. It is in both the public and private interests to afford the beach/dune system space to accrete and erode in its natural cycle. This space can be provided only by discouraging new construction in close proximity to the beach/dune system and encouraging those who have erected structures too close to the system to retreat from it.

We refused the owners once again. But we finally broke down to help only if they compensate us enough to pick our house up and out of way of the tide that will surely come our way as a result of the Rip-Rap. Agreed.

The Rip-Rap went down. Then the owners reneged on the agreement. We had to pull the Rip-Rap, but the Rip-Rap directly in front of their house was left on the beach. 

Now there is a proposal in front of the County to keep the Rip-Rap and install steel sheet piling on their North flank ...3' from their foundation for 100' East to West.

  Property line. Proposing to Steel Sheet pile between House and Property Line - How can this be done without disturbing property and the beach?


  This what the Sheet Piling will look like. Is this what we want our beaches to look like? This mess will ultimately look like the rusty hull of the New Carissa right on the beach.

Obviously, we had to challenge this proposal due to extreme amplified risk to our house not to mention the public beach. 

I would like to add the Waltons take full responsibility in having a building located where we are. If the ocean comes and takes the house....well that's life and the risk you take on the beach. We just don't want to take the amplified risk.

Since March of 2003, I have been actively trying to prove to the State and County the errors of their ways. Essentially, Tillamook County has created an amplified hazard for the Walton's in allowing the subdivision to go in, be built upon and the 1997 house given the "pre-1977" right to be protected. 

I have finally proven to all that the water indeed comes back to our house aggressively and on a regular basis. 

The much bigger picture:

Unfortunately, what I found out in the process of collecting information in our defense was that Neskowin Beach could very well be lost. 

In working with the State and County and debating their "experts" whether the Waltons were at amplified risk or not...no valid second opinions could be found in this state.

I had to go out of State, to North Carolina - Duke University to be exact. I lucked out and got in contact with the "Mr. East coast" beach erosion expert:
Orrin H. Pilkey, Director
Program for the Study of Developed Shorelines
Division of Earth and Ocean Sciences
Duke University, Box 90228
Durham NC 27708

I sent Dr. Pilkey pictures of Easter 2003 erosion in front of the Pattons, the Pacifc Sands, my house and the Davids + the back ground.

Below are Dr. Pilkey's responses:

1. Dear Jeff. I am very distressed to hear the things in your letter. If your neighbor puts rocks on your beach you will be in serious trouble as I can see you already understand. I have been bragging on Oregon's laws because I thought they had solved the hard stabilization problem. Obviously they hadn't. Paul Komar's book, "The Pacific Northwest's Coast" addresses this somewhat- not as strongly as I would have liked. (His book is in a series that I edit). I don't know the system in Oregon well enough to tell you who to contact to get local help. There has to be somebody willing to raise the appropriate questions??????? Orrin 

2. We are in receipt of your photos showing erosion and riprap along Neskowin Beach, and are concerned that the use of a riprap revetment will have significant long-term impacts to the beach. From the standpoint of beach and resource quality, riprap revetments possess a number of undesirable characteristics including: 1) poor aesthetics, 2) access problems 3) physical hazards to beach users and 4) the degradation and ultimate (long-term) loss of the beach. These and other pertinent issues must be considered before property owners, communities, counties and states resort to using hard structures, such as riprap, to protect development located along eroding shorelines. 

The first, and most important, issue is the future of the beach. It is our belief that a community (or other decision-making entity) must make a fundamental decision regarding what is most important: preservation of the beach or preservation of buildings. If buildings are deemed more important, then riprap is a potential short-term solution (short-term because a riprap wall does not address the cause of the erosion). If the public's beach is deemed worthy of preservation, however, the situation becomes much more complex.

On high wave energy coasts, such as Oregon's, riprap revetments will require considerable maintenance, especially as the beach narrows over time. Regardless of whether a revetment is actively involved in beach erosion, it is widely known that just the presence of a static barrier at the back of an eroding beach will result in the loss of the beach as the retreating shoreline backs up into the wall. Eventually, the beach will disappear completely, leaving only a many-times repaired revetment.

Furthermore, as a beach narrows in front of a revetment or seawall, the supply of sand available to nearby beaches is substantially reduced, thereby accelerating erosion adjacent to the structure. As a general rule, it is fair to say that one revetment or seawall will eventually lead to many.

From a political standpoint, the beaches of Oregon's coastal communities are used by a large number of people, most of who don't live in these communities, and these publicly-treasured natural resources are being threatened - and degraded - by the efforts of a small number of property owners.

Alternatives to rock revetments do exist, but they are politically difficult to implement. If space is available, buildings can be moved and, if not, they can be completely removed from the barrier. A community or state can also purchase vulnerable property and demolish threatened structures. In certain cases, it may be practical to do nothing and simply let a structure fall-in when it's time comes (of course, the beach should be cleaned-up immediately afterwards). As we said, none of these alternatives is politically painless, but preservation of the beach should be the highest priority for Tillamook County, and that means some unpopular decisions will just have to be made.

3. .Very interesting - I've been through this several times before including the debate about seawalling at Ocean shores Washington and the huge beach loss problem in Hawaii due to seawalls. It seems that each state has to learn the hard way. Generalizations about seawalls just don't seem to cross state lines!
If a shoreline is eroding and if a permanent structure is built at the back of the beach, the beach will narrow and eventually disappear. The structure has addressed the societal problem of shoreline retreat but not the cause of shoreline retreat. It doesn't matter whether the permanent structure is a vertical concrete wall, a rock revetment or a pile of sandbags, the same effect is there. In my writings I have noted that loss of the beach may take somewhere between 2 to 60 years. In North Carolina the beach is typically lost in 30 to 40 years although the loss of the high tide beach may come much sooner. Each beach is unique and prediction of the rate of beach loss in front of walls is not possible (although experience on neighboring beaches is usually a good barometer) . Predictable or not, beach loss is an absolute certainty on eroding shorelines. 
There are a number of examples around the world where seawalls have not caused beach loss but these are always non eroding shorelines. There are other aspects of seawall impacts. For example on Jekyll Island Georgia a seawall was built immediately after hurricane Dora (1964). The shoreline had not recovered from the storm and along one shoreline reach there was and still is a healthy dune line in front of the wall which was part of the natural storm recovery. Forty Years down the road, along most of the Jekyll Island seawall, there now is no high tide or mid tide beach. Orrin Pilkey 

4. It is critical for the state of Oregon to make a decision on the erosion problem in question in the full light of the extensive national knowledge available on seawall impacts. Some salient points include:

Once a wall is put in it is an irreversible step. The national experience shows that walls are virtually never removed. In fact they usually grow stronger and larger with time as the walls are repaired from time to time after storms damage them. 
The type of wall is immaterial as a rule. The damaging aspect of walls is purely passive in most cases. The presence of any static object on the beach - sand bag seawalls, vertical concrete seawalls, houses, highways - will lead to beach narrowing as the beach gradually continues its erosive path and backs into the object. 
There are examples along the Oregon-Washington coast where beaches no longer exist in front of seawalls. 
The alternative to prohibition of walls is painful. But the future of the beach in a degraded state, decades down the road is more painful. The easy political route is to permit the walls because the real problem wont show up for years. The responsible route is to try to preserve the beach for future generations. Is the preservation of a few houses worth the eventual destruction of the beach?


Obviously my personal issue with my home is insignificant by comparison to losing Neskowin's public beach.

After sending the State and County copies of all my pictures and research they now finally admit that I have a point and Neskowin Beach is likely to be lost. County - "Oh yeah, that's what happens when you put Rip-Rap down. Didn't ya know? OH MY GOSH!!! NO I DIDN'T!!! NOR DO I THINK THE COMMUNITY KNOWS EITHER!!!

I am in real conflict as I don't want anybody's house to fall in. I have close friends out there. But at what cost? The beach? I do not pass myself off as an ocean expert. Just a citizen that found out more than he anticipated and felt like others in the community should be aware of another perspective of Neskowin's problem,.then let the community draw their own conclusions.

Personally, I think we have an undeclared emergency at Neskowin. There are safety risks every where.

1. Public Beach access is now blocked
2. Emergency vehicles cannot get to the beach.
3. People are climbing around on these big slick rocks down 30' to the beach or what is left of it.
4. People are commonly trying to walk the beach at extreme low tide by timing their "run for it" between the breakers and the Rip-Rap.
5. The general public is not aware of any danger


At the very best, we really don't know what that ocean is going to do.

The bigger questions:

1. Why did the State of Oregon adopt Rip-Rap as an erosion control device when there was evidence from other coastal states that it does not work and actually does damage to the beach?

2. Do you refute any of Dr. Pilkey's opinions on Neskowin Beach?

3. If so, on what basis? 

4. If Dr. Pilkey is correct or even could be correct, should the State approve a final permit for Rip-Rap in front of the Davids? 

5. With the evidence above should the Waltons be worried? Would you be worried?

6. How can the State allow a rusty steel wall on the beach for all to see? Is that right?

7. What should the State tell the Neskowin community about the erosion? Will Neskowin's beach be destroyed? Could Neskowin's beach be destroyed?

8. Can the State and Tillamook County recognize what is happening, grasp the precedent riding on this case, adjust and do what is right for everybody?

Tillamook County's mission is to: enhance the quality of life for its citizens by promoting and preserving public health and safety, maintaining a stable economy, encouraging wise use of resources, and providing services in the most efficient and cost-effective manner possible. 

The mission of the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department: To provide and protect outstanding natural, scenic, cultural, historic and recreational sites for the enjoyment and education of present and future generations 

9. Are the mission statements above being well served at Neskowin?


After all, its your beach too.

Respectfully submitted,

Jeff Walton