Iconic Santa Cruz Wharf Collapses, Repairs Were Delayed Due To Bizarre Reasoning

The iconic Santa Cruz Wharf collapsed on Monday as city officials started a $4 million project to fix the wharf.

Construction equipment, a restaurant, and three people fell into the ocean as the wharf collapsed.

The three people who fell off teh wharf suffered only minor injuries, but the question has been raised: why wasn’t the wharf fixed earlier?

Now, Mercury News has reported the construction of the wharf was delayed for several years due to seagulls.

Environmental activists delayed the construction of the wharf due to seagull nests that were made under the wharf.

WHARF COLLAPSE | Video from a home near the wharf shows the moment the wharf collapsed into the ocean.

Latest: https://t.co/aeqrW8Fkct pic.twitter.com/3rlMEbGKa7

— KSBW Action News 8 (@ksbw) December 23, 2024

Santa Cruz wharf broken and floating in the water pic.twitter.com/dcVdOLaQ0t

— Dave Hodson (@davehod) December 23, 2024

Per KSBW:

Santa Cruz officials held a media conference on Friday to provide the public with new details about the Santa Cruz Wharf that partially collapsed earlier in the week.

The wharf collapsed right in the middle of a $4 million project to fix the damages from previous storms.

In all, about 150 feet at the end of the wharf was destroyed, officials said. This includes the Dolphin Restaurant and a restroom. Three people fell into the ocean when the wharf collapsed; they all suffered minor injuries.

Director of Parks and Recreation for the City of Santa Tony Elliot said that the partial collapse was caused by two main factors:

Historic swells unseen in 30 years.
Past damage from winter storms over the past two years.
Elliot stated work began to repair the wharf in September and was going to last through March. The project to work on repairs was delayed and limited due to multiple factors.

City leaders also noted that a master plan to reinforce the wharf has been in place since 2015 but has been delayed by legal challenges.

“We have projects that have been ready to go that could have prevented this most recent collapse,” said Santa Cruz City Manager Matt Huffaker “We’ll never know for sure, but we do know that the delays of our master plan are largely due to lawsuits against the city that slowed down. Those important investments have left our wharf more vulnerable.”

SCOOP: A lot of questions have been circulating about why the Santa Cruz wharf was still in a state of disrepair Monday when it collapsed + what slowed repairs. Litigation is part of the reason. Another reason: CA's protections for nesting seagulls. https://t.co/Zb2qjoetPS

— Kate Talerico (@k_talerico) December 28, 2024

Per Mercury News:

When the last 150 feet of Santa Cruz’s iconic wharf plummeted into the ocean Monday, city leaders were still grappling with damage it had sustained two years earlier during back-to-back winter storms.

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With the construction equipment now at the bottom of the ocean, some local residents are asking why the city waited until the winter — when storms are common and the sea is rougher — to start a $4 million project to repair the popular pier.

The complicated answer is that the repairs were hamstrung by a common California problem: tension between protecting the environment and maintaining key infrastructure, a battle that has played out along the coast for years. Strict permitting requirements and lengthy litigation by environmental activists have stalled efforts to fortify the pier that could have helped it withstand the storm, current and former city officials say.
At the center of the delays: seagulls.

It was for the benefit of the western gull, commonly known as the seagull, that the city of Santa Cruz delayed the most critical part of the repair work, installing new timber piles — the columns that hold up the wharf — until September, because gulls and another bird, the pigeon guillemot, make their nests in the wharf’s wooden beams.

The protections for the birds are imposed by the state Coastal Commission, from which the city must obtain a permit before it can do repairs. Most major construction — including replacing the piles — must take place between September and March to avoid the nesting season.