Three city-owned seawalls and 12 revetments — structures that protect against erosion and water damage — were inspected in Morro Bay to assess the conditions needed for repairs.
“There’s a lot of rip rap and rock underneath the docks all the way down the waterfront,” said Neal Maloney, Morro Bay Oyster Company owner.
Severity levels for repairs range from good to critical. The city has a maximum of 10 years to fix them.
“Which lets us spread out the financial burden over time,” said Cindy Cecil, Morro Bay City Engineer.
Cecil says the seawalls and revetments were built 80 years ago and have a lifespan of around 50 years. Storm surge, runoff, and the passage of time have damaged them, and Cecil says there will be obstacles to repairing them.
“A lot of it has to be done from the water. A lot of it at low tide, which means short windows to work and then button it up until you have a low tide again,” Cecil said.
One of the first priorities would be a revetment wall between the Morro Bay Marina Square and Three Stacks and a Rock Brewing Company.
“Technically it has failure. It does not have failure at the walkways at this point and we want to keep it that way. Parking has not been impacted at this point. It’s got failures outside of that, that could lead to that. We want to take care of that before it happens,” Cecil said.
At another revetment wall between Morro Bay Oyster Company and the North T Pier, rocks are sliding down. Cecil explained what could happen if that continues.
“The rip rap moved, the soil came out, all of a sudden nothing is holding the asphalt,” Cecil said.
Morro Bay Oyster Company owner Neal Maloney says he also has aging pilings under his dock.
‘We’ve got work to do as far as upgrading pilings and when we do that, we will take into account the rip rap and make sure we’re not damaging the revetment,” Maloney said.
To make the repairs, the city needs to allocate a budget for it, with grant funding being needed as well.
“Before we do the construction, we have to hire a design firm to prepare the plans to tell us what the construction needs to look like,” Cecil said.
