Humboldt County officials have long debated what to do with Centerville Road, a narrow, winding path that leads to an eroding rural beach and a handful of homes.
Rising, warming waters and fierce winter storms battered the roads. Usually, it is completely covered with sand and salt water.
About two years ago, the Humboldt County Department of Public Works proposed a solution to the California Coastal Commission: Local officials wanted to raise a 0.17-mile section of Centerville Road 10 feet and build a revetment, a layer of sloping rock on top of the sand, designed to protect it from the pounding waves for at least a few years.
In September, the Coastal Commission gave the county approval, with conditions, to build and repair the road a few miles west of the town of Ferndale. Construction is expected to begin early next year.
But this week, as a “super” El Niño emerged, the Humboldt County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to cave in and abandon its long-sought $3.8 million project because the cliffs and bluffs along Centerville Road are collapsing so quickly that parts of the road could soon slide into the Pacific Ocean.
“That place is just unbelievable, the disintegration of those slopes,” Supervisor Steve Madrone said during Tuesday’s Board of Supervisors meeting. He added: “This will pass. I mean, there’s no doubt about it, it’s just a matter of time.”
Supervisor Mike Wilson added: “This road won’t last forever.”
In directing the county’s public works staff to come up with a plan that would not repair the road but move it farther inland, supervisors opted for a policy called “managed retreat,” which means pushing infrastructure back from the water’s edge.
That’s the decision facing low-lying communities along California’s 840 miles of coastline, where historically hot waters are pushing up the high tide line and powerful waves – especially during this El Niño season – are pounding beaches and infrastructure mercilessly.
Centerville Beach in rural Humboldt County.
(Bo Sanders/The Times)
Managed retreat is often fraught with political challenges and local resistance. In Humboldt County, the goal of moving Centerville Road inland has long faced opposition from adjacent private landowners who have refused to grant the right-of-way because of concerns about trespass, damage and safety concerns.
Lorraine Pedrotti, who owns property south of Centerville Beach, said at the supervisors meeting that the county has done a poor job communicating with nearby landowners. She said she was “concerned about the proposal to abandon a ready-made project” for which the county had received federal and state disaster relief funds in favor of realigning the road without a clear timeline or funding.
“I realized it was necessary [have] It’s a long-term solution, but at the same time, dealing with sometimes impassable roads for years is unacceptable,” she said.
George Brown, another landowner opposed to the diversion, said he lives a half-mile from the bluff and questioned whether erosion is as critical as officials say.
“I’ve been looking at those cliffs my whole life…I’ve climbed them. I’ve walked the beaches below them,” he said. “They must have moved in the last 20 years. It’s been about 100 years since they moved before. We don’t know if this is going to continue, continue. It could stop at any time.”
“I would like to see the entire beach eroded all the way to our property before the road goes through it,” he added.
Centerville Beach, home to some of the state’s fastest-eroding cliffs, has been shrinking for decades. Many of the dunes have disappeared. The beach parking lot, which once accommodated 100 cars, was washed away and visitors were forced to park on the shoulder of the roadside. In 2024, a large chunk of the cliffside collapsed near the road, sending onlookers sprinting over the edge as the ground gave way.
In September, the Coastal Commission approved a coastal development permit for Centerville Road on the condition that the county plan to remove the elevated road and rock revetment and build a new parking lot within 20 years, with plans to move the road inland.
The Coastal Commission also asked the county to stop allowing motor vehicles on the beach, angering locals who have long biked to the beach to fish and enjoy rural seclusion.
Hank Seemann, the county’s deputy public works director, told supervisors that worsening bluff erosion and the high cost of raising and strengthening the road — which ultimately had to be moved inland — made the project financially imprudent.
Only a small portion of Centerville Road near Sandlot will be built. Just south of it, the road runs along treacherous ground.
About 1,500 feet of road is less than 100 feet from the edge of the cliff, and at least two areas are less than 25 feet away from the steep slope, Seemann said.
“Public Works is very concerned about active landslide activity in the south,” he said, adding that “the benefits of the beach project may be lost if roads to the south are severely damaged or destroyed.”
In voting to abandon the road-raising project, supervisors directed county staff to immediately begin developing plans to realign the road and engage with (and potentially negotiate with) landowners.
“Having stable access, no matter where you are, benefits everyone in the long run,” Madrone said.
This includes landowners who rely on roads to access their properties, he said.