#coastal-erosion

#coastal-erosion

Buenaventura is the most important port on Colombia's Pacific coast, handling about 40% of the country's foreign trade and acting as the gateway to the Uramba Bahia Malaga national natural park. Every year, tens of thousands of tourists arrive there, heading to the village of Juanchaco or the beaches of Ladrilleros and La Barra. But the coast around Juanchaco, in the Valle del Cauca department, is experiencing accelerated erosion that has already left damaged streets, collapsed homes and a local economy exposed to the elements.

A wave of relief is crashing over Fire Island: The state just approved a $1.7 billion budget to make sure New Yorkers' favorite summer escape doesn't slip beneath the surf. The barrier island, a 32-mile-long ribbon of sand that draws more than 2 million visitors each year, has been shrinking fast. In recent winters, nor'easters chewed away so much shoreline that high tides lapped frighteningly close to houses in the Pines and Cherry Grove. For locals and weekenders alike, it felt like paradise was one storm away from being swallowed whole.

For more than 20 years, Mussel Rock, a steep stretch of oceanfront land in northern San Mateo County with breathtaking views of the Pacific Ocean and the Farallon Islands, was a garbage dump. Two communities, Pacifica and Daly City, threw away thousands of tons of trash there starting in 1957, when Dwight D. Eisenhower was president, I Love Lucy and Elvis ruled TV and radio, and environmental laws were few and far between. The landfill closed in 1978.