In the ongoing tug-of-war over shared use of La Jolla’s Children’s Pool, beach-access proponents have “yanked back” with a lawsuit challenging the recent Coastal Commission decision to ban human access to the beach during the seals’ upcoming pupping season.
Friends of the Children’s Pool filed a suit in Superior Court Oct. 10 alleging city mismanagement of the pool and violation of constitutionally protected ocean access.
“We have a constitution in California that the city of San Diego cannot circumvent,” said Friends spokesman Ken Hunrichs, adding that California’s constitution “guarantees coastal access and fishing rights.”
There are other, legal, justifications for the lawsuit, Hunrichs said.
“The land was transferred in a tideland grant, and they (government) have violated the right to fish and for access,” he said.
Hunrichs said Friends is asking for the Coastal Commission’s decision banning human contact with the beach to be “set aside.” “We want to enjoin the city from enforcing or enacting (restricting beach access) making it a crime to be on the beach, believing this violates our Constitutional right to access on the coast.”
“Our office has received the complaint and it is under review,” said Gerry Braun, director of communications for the City Attorney’s Office, responding to the lawsuit.
Overriding objections by beach-access proponents, the California Coastal Commission Aug. 14 unanimously endorsed a five-year ban on people accessing La Jolla’s Children’s Pool from Dec. 15 to May 15 to afford greater protection to harbor seals during their pupping season. In rendering its decision, the Commission also directed that ways of cleaning Children’s Pool and making it accessible for the disabled need to be addressed when the matter returns to them for review in five years.
The suit was the latest twist in a series of back-and-forth developments over several years defining the relationship between seals and human recreational users — swimmers, fisherman, divers, et cetera — who access the ocean via the protected pocket beach.
Pagada por la filántropa de La Jolla, Ellen Browning Scripps, y creada como un área de vadeo segura para los niños, la piscina fue cedida a la ciudad en 1931. Durante la década de 1990, el rompeolas hecho por el hombre se vio cada vez más invadido por focas, que convirtieron la piscina en un transporte. fuera del sitio y una colonia.
En 1997, el departamento de salud del condado cerró la piscina al contacto humano debido a los altos recuentos de bacterias de la acumulación de desechos de focas en sus aguas poco profundas. Los letreros continúan advirtiendo que el contacto con el agua podría representar un riesgo grave para la salud.
In its suit, Friends alleges the City deliberately avoided alternate management proposals that would allow shared use to work at Children’s Pool.
“We are asking for the ability of citizens,” Hunrichs said, “to continue sharing the fraction of shoreline accessible to them that is legally upheld per the state Constitution. This right needs to be re-established before other beaches, where seals or sea lions have decided to land, are summarily and unnecessarily closed to make life easy for city administrators.”