Is This the End of the Ocean Beach Pier?

By Geoff Page

A recent puff piece in the local weekly newspaper about the Ocean Beach Pier can serve as an illustration of the differences between what readers get in The OB Rag what readers see in the other local paper.  What people need to read about are things that matter.  The pier doesn’t need a puff piece, it may need an obituary.

The Beacon article asked why “the fuss over a few washed-out railings?”  The answer lies later in the piece after a brief bit of history.  That history included a colossal mistake and a truly idiotic location chosen for the pier.

First, the railing comment. The article quoted the general contractor that built the pier as saying:

“Those railings are doing exactly what they were meant to do — wash away in high seas, lessening resistance of water hitting the pier,” says the general contractor who built the pier (he prefers we not mention his name for privacy’s sake). “Rails can be easily replaced, though at an expected cost to the city.”

That the contractor did not want his name used is a really mystery.  Contractors are proud of things they build and they especially like their names attached to iconic structures like this much-loved pier.  Go into any major contractor’s offices and you will see pictures of these signature projects. Very odd.

That the rails were meant to break away is true but not for the reason stated. The rails were built that way as a partial mitigation for a colossal engineering error.  The engineer was Greer Ferver.  The article stated that “Ferver had done his underwater design study the summer ahead, noting four feet of sand on top of the natural sandstone layer under the area where we put the pier,” the general contractor said.”

He did his study in the summer.  Why would an engineer design a pier for the summer, the most benign part of the year?  Almost anyone who knows the ocean would laugh at that. The contractor went on to say:

“The whole idea of a fishing pier was to keep it as low as we could for fishermen pulling up their catch.”

So, they designed a pier as low to the water as possible that could handle OB’s fierce summer surf. You can’t make this stuff up.  So what happened?

“Midway through the build it was necessary to alter the original blueprint after an aggressive January storm washed out three forward pilings and nearly forced a costly crane into the water. Keep in mind that at the time, the pier was still under construction when the sea devoured portions of two, 30-foot precast concrete deck sections.”

It was then discovered that the natural progression of winter tides took out all that sand from the sandstone ledge, which increased the height of waves that would hit the pier.

“To accommodate this revelation, the structural engineer redesigned the grade of the pier from the destruction point, or from where the pier bends up,” notes the contractor, “thus increasing the grade, or slope, by 1 percent to get above the surf, nearly two-thirds the length of the pier. All in a day’s work…”

“All in a day’s work?” Trying to fix a major engineering error? That is why the bridge railings keep getting damaged.  Halfway through construction they realized they made a serious mistake and angled the pier up, instead of rebuilding what they had already constructed.  Look where all the railing damage happens, at that angle point and on either side until the pier rises high enough to avoid damage.

Now that they knew the low point would be a problem, they designed breakaway rails, not because they would lessen the impact of water against the pier, that is preposterous. The pier is made out of concrete, a bit of railing is not going have such an effect.

The railings were designed that way because they knew the waves would damage whatever they put up because the pier was too low.  The low spot is also in the surf break zone.  It was pointless to try and put up more sturdy and expensive rails because those would be more expensive to fix. No, this was a way to mitigate some of the engineering mistake and to avoid a more costly rebuild of the badly designed pier.

The article ended with this:

“The contractor holds rich esteem for the community of Ocean Beach, for its early tenacity for want of a pier, and its on-going affection of it. ‘Everybody loves that pier!’ he crows.”

So why doesn’t the contractor want anyone to know who he is?  The fact is, not everyone loves the pier because of how stupidly it was sited.  Unfortunately, the surfers from the 1960s were not an organized group.  If someone tried to put that pier there today, surfers from everywhere would protest like hell.  It runs smack dab through a beautiful reef-to-beach break.

When that pier was not where it is, a surfer could catch a long left from the outer reef west of Niagara to the sand.  To do that now, surfers have to shoot under the pier, which is not something most want to risk.

The Beacon article recounted that a pier was begun in the 1940s off Del Monte street but was not built because World War II took the steel intended for the structure.  That would have been the perfect location.  It is likely that the merchants in OB lobbied to move it closer to Newport Avenue as better for business.

What the Beacon article did not mention was that the pier is in really bad shape for a number of reasons.

The first goes back to the design.  The underside of the pier and the deck above were not designed to be regularly bathed in salt water.  They were designed to withstand the elements of course but because the engineering mistake was never corrected, part of the pier receives much more immersion in salt water than the design intended.  The higher parts of the pier, even in times of very high surf, do not suffer this kind of abuse from the sea.

Wherever you see rust on the pier, you see a problem.  The pier structure is reinforced concrete.  That means it looks like concrete on the outside but there is an inner structure of steel reinforcement bar inside the concrete.  This is the problem.  When cracks appear in the concrete, water intrudes and cause the steel to rust.  Rust actually cause the steel to expand and the pressure of that expansion cause the concrete to crack more and more.

If cracks are not maintained and sealed regularly, the damage just continues to the point of failure. The stanchions that the rails are attached to are bolted to U-shaped metal braces anchored to the concrete.  These connections have shown obvious damage for years, which caused this reporter to begin to query the city. As the pictures shown, these steel braces have been torn out of the concrete.  These were not intended to break away.

The city has spent almost $700,000 for sole source engineering studies of the pier using the engineering firm of Moffat & Nichol from Long Beach.  The first evaluation was for $518,333 dated 2-28-2017. The second evaluation was for $167,162 dated 2-20-18.

All that money just to find out what was wrong with the pier. The original amount was only $300,000 but was increased by memo in 2016.  A PRA request in April 2018 was unsuccessful in obtaining the actual pier assessment report from Moffat & Nichol.  A new request was recently filed.

Sometime last year, the OB Planning Board was told the city had set aside $3 million for work on the pier to deal with some of the damage.  Nothing has happened.  Now, with the COVID impact on city finances, money for the pier has a low priority.

A document from Parks & Recreation for “Fiscal Year 2021 CIP Proposed Budget” describes what needs to be done.

“Description: This project will strengthen the pier piles by adding additional concrete surrounding the existing piles.  Steel in the decking will also be replaces as necessary, as well as adding beams to the underside of the decking and replacement of the deck edging that has spalled off.

Justification: The project is needed to address structural issues with the pier that may be safety issues to the public.”

How serious are the safety concerns? The pier used to be closed only when railing was damaged.  It is closed regularly now whenever the surf gets a little high because the city is so worried about the pier structurally.

The budget document listed the “Project Category” as “Low.”  Only $103,571 is included for the pier in the 2021 budget.  The estimate of money needed is listed under “Unidentified Funding” totaling $20,000,000.  This reporter’s experience in estimating and construction says this figure may actually be too low.

A full story on the actual condition of the pier will be described later when the engineering assessment is obtained.  Suffice to say folks, that we are watching the crumbling, and possible demise, of the OB Pier.