As a result of the Surfrider Foundations' historic legal victory over Chevron, construction of an artificial surfing reef called Prattes Reef will be built at El Segundo. This project has been in the works since 1994 and construction was slated for this Wednesday,September 18, but will actually start on the 20th, today.

Here's a little insight as to the why of Prattes' reef...Surfrider and Chevron have agreed to replace what was once a prime surf spot with a surfable artificial reef at El Segundo. Following the El Nino winter storms of 1982-83, Chevron built a rock jetty or "groin" to address the problem of shoreline erosion as well as protect its marine terminal operations. This jetty all but ruined Grand Avenue Break, North of El Porto. Prior to construction a condition was placed whereby an evaluation would be made to determine the impact the jetty would have on surf conditions. The impact turned out to be unfavorable. After years of study, Surfrider Foundation scientists settled on a design that uses large Geotextile bags filled with 15 cubic yards of imported beach quality sand. The proposal calls for the bags to be placed in the water just beyond the normal surf zone. The "legs" will be approximately 150 feet long and 7 feet high and will be placed in 15 feet of water, mean sea level. In theory, the reef should act like a submerged breakwater, creating perfect lefts and rights depending on the swell. The huge bags will be filled and floated via barge to the new surf site. The designers will rely heavily on wave forecasting services such as elporto.com so they don't get swamped during construction. We will be updating you on the progress of this project as new information becomes available to elporto.com.

The following is a chronologically organized sequence of events from end to beginning.

12/20/01 Paul Kerza has been doing our Prattes reef surf report for the past 5 months so I asked him to, (in writing) tell the public what he's seen so far. Although not very encouraging, I felt obligated to update the public.

I keep saying to myself this thing has got to work, it must. I get tired of submitting reports for Prattes with nothing to say. It’s just as disappointing to write, as it is to read. I believe many already think of this project as a failure and hold no hope for it. I still have hope, maybe only because I want peeling left and right barrels in my backyard. Maybe I’m just caught up in my own fantasy, but I just keep saying to myself, this thing has got to work. Supposedly it has worked before. I’ve never seen it do anything but barely crumble and show a few ripples on the surface; just enough so your able to see the location of the reef. I’ve certainly never seen anything close to rideable.

I have seen it crumble, however, so it is trying to break. From what I have read on the Surfrider reports it seems that there is a trough that has formed in front of the reef. As a result, any approaching wave that is tripped by the reef, immediately backs off in the deeper water caused by the trough in front of the reef. This can only be remedied by the addition of sand from heavy winter storms moving sand off the beach face or by manmade efforts. Once this happens incoming swells should be able to hold shape and speed or at least have a better chance of doing so.

The addition of sand would only be beneficial in front of the reef. Adding new bags directly on the reef wouldn’t do much to help. I read in one of the reports that at very low tides the reef is almost exposed and is under only a couple feet of water. A diver is easily able to stand on top of the reef. Adding sand to the existing body of the reef would only make the trough deeper in effect and add further danger riding at low tides. There was actually mention of possibly removing a sand bag.

There is a fine line here, in that, there has to be enough height in the reef to trip a wave yet the height can’t starve the area in front of the reef of sand. This just causes the trough to deepen and widen making the tripped wave back off immediately turning it into mush. The addition of supplemental sand in front of the reef to give more of a gradient off the tip of the reef could be a positive. I would think then that an incoming swell would be able to hold itself a little better. However, it’s all very experimental and no one really knows how much that would change the natural process of things. The basic groundwork is down and nature now needs some time to shape it properly. Maybe we can give nature a hand every now and then to speed things up, but more importantly it’s about time and patience right now.
Paul Kerza

The latest from Jim Light of the surfrider foundation

On Sunday (2 Sept 2001), Andrew Gushiken and I made a dive on Pratte's Reef.Visibility and conditions were the best we've had it since the second partof the reef was added. The swell was 1 to 2 with an occasional 3 foot wave.Wind was onshore with slight wind chop. Visibility was about 15 to 20 feet depending on surge. That's the good, the bad is that we had a video equipment failure - so we don't have it on video. The reef itself is well exposed. Some of the old bags have been uncovered.The shallowest depth of the reef during this dive done around 10 AM (high tide) was 6 feet the deepest was 16 feet, but more often between 10 and 14 feet. At least 6 bags have severe tears in them, three of them are basically open on the top. Several of the ripped bags have rocks in them which is not per permit requirements. None of the rips seem new and have probably been there since they were dumped. One ripped bag clearly penetrates the surface at low tides and should be removed. One small rip in a bag (not counted in the six) appears to have been caused by the sharp edge of a broken brick in the bag. I don't think our sand meets the specs required by the permit - not sure how this happened. With the exception of partially filled bags and newly uncovered (by sandbar erosion) bags, all bags have a good coating of seaweed that grows about two inches thick. Some barnacles have also attached themselves to the bags. There still remains a trough inland of the reef. The trough is between 8 and twelve feet deep and extends from the reef to around 60 feet inland of the reef. This trough still causes tripped waves to back off. Lots of garbage collects at the reef - mostly freed kelp and seaweed, but plastics and other garbage is
trapped in pockets around the reef. Sealife is abundant. We observed:
* about half a dozen lobster about 6 to 8 inches long.
* One guitarfish
* one swell shark in a crevice between bags
* several long slender sharks light gray about 4 to 5 feet in length.
They stayed on the edge of visual range, so I could not identify them better.
* One school of about 30 "perchlike" fish, silvery in color with one
vertical black stripe under the dorsal fin, about 6 to 8 inches in length.
Possibly "Sargo"?
* several round nosed stingrays
* two schools of smaller silvery fish between two and three inches in length similar to minnows, but two distint types in the differnet schools
* About 5 California Halibut - two were well over 24 inches in length. Of all the sealife we observed, only the sharks and stingrays seemed wary of our presence. We hovered over two large halibut and they never moved. The lobster were aware of us but did not bolt for cover. The schools of fish were content to let us swim amongst them. The reef affects the direction of the surge so that navigation out of view of the reef is difficult without referring to a compass. One cannot count on the surge following a uniform direction, it is definitely deflected as one approaches the outside edges of the reef. The front of the reef has sand gently sloping up to interface with the bags. The rear of the reef does not appear to have trapped any sand as the interface between and the bags is still quite sharply defined. More of the legs were visible on this dive including the upper surface of first phase bags previously covered by the winter sandbar. This is probably due to the summer erosion of the winter sandbar. Unfortunately I did not observe any sign that the rear of the reef was filling in with sand. Perhaps the next winter cycle will deposit sand that will remain trapped behind the reef next Spring and Summer.

07-27-01 I sure hope this guy's not the weakest link
Last night Cynthia Page received a call from an NBC executive, who mentioned that actor Brandon Cruz will be a celebrity contestant on "The Weakest Link"this weekend. Cruz will win a minimum of $25,000, all of which will be donated to the South Bay chapter--and he wants it earmarked specifically for Pratte's Reef!

Here are some recently uncovered pics of Pratte's absolutely going off on 1-12-01 courtesey of James Hanrahan. This is before the new round of bags was dropped. For you doubters out there, these pics have been authenticated.

5-2-01 As told by Jim Light of the Surfrider Foundation
We dove Saturday at high tide. The depth of the reef was between 10 and 16 feet (deeper in front). The top of reef was 5 to 6 feet below the surface. The bag placement is far better than the first drop - a lot tighter more consistent layout. The new bags start right on top of the old bags (the surface of which is barely exposed). I noted three torn bags - one white and two black. One had rocks inside the tear mixed with the sand!?!??? One bag had a web of straps around it (like a cargo net). A couple of bags had minor tears. The interface was the sand was (as expected) very clean with little sand movement evident since the drop.

Wildlife was already attracted to the new reef. One spider like crab was hiding in a crevice between two bags. I also scared up three flounder (Halibut to you West coasters). . Hermit crabs were abundant as well.

Visibility was poor and surge was a problem, so mapping was near impossible. The surge would take me out of sight of the reef and when I surged back it was tough to tell if I was looking at the same bag or another one. Entaglement was also a hazard, so I did not do an extensive look at the top thich portion of the reef. With the bouys gone, this should be easier on the next dive. But I think surge will continue to be a problem in all but the calmest conditions.

There is a sandbar about waist deep almost all the way out to the reef then a trough for about 15 yards immediately behind the reef. The trough causes smaller waves to back off after breaking on the reef. It will be interesting to see if this fills in. It will also be interesting to see what happens as the current sandbar that the reef is a part of erodes. That's all the news that's fit to print.

4-21-01
The Skelley engineering crew should have already dropped the additional 90 bags but unfortunately by the time everything was set to go their permit had expired and a grunion run prevented them from moving forward with the scheduled reef enhancement. As of yesterday, a crane is onsite and ready to place the additional 90 bags which are double the size of the first ones (4 tons). The original drop was too deep (obviously) so the plan is to place the new bags on top and along the sides of the existing structure to increase the volume of the reef as a whole. The recent survey did confirm that sand is building on the reef. The bags will be placed as soon as a window of opportunity presents itself (small surf, light winds). Hopefully, with this latest drop, the sand will continue to build through the summer and create some waves. We'll keep you posted.

03-16-01
Between now and 4/1 they will be dropping another 80 bags on Prattes. This is an attempt to bulk it up a bit. Contrary to alot of peoples beliefs, the bags are not sinking, rather they are holding sand as planned. The reef will be raised a bit during the next drop but will still meet all of the requirements. A dive on the reef recently confirmed this. During the dive there were a couple of bags that showed tears. It was determined that these bags were the ones that were damaged while being filled during the original operation. To sum it up- The reef is doing what it was supposed to and with the addition of more bags there is a good chance it will work. Stay tuned and keep your fingers crossed.

2-27-01
We have visual confirmation that Pratte's reef has been successfully ridden. On 2-24-01 at approximately 9:00 AM, Dan Stoller of Westchester was walking his dog through the lot in front of Pratte's and witnessed an unidentified, goofyfooted, longboarder riding mushy, but perfectly shaped rights for an estimated 30+ yards. This guy was out alone scoring wave after wave for nearly 45 minutes before a sponger and a shortboarder decided to muscle in on his action. Although promising, the reason I did not witness this event myself is due to the fact that the whole South Bay was firing off perfect waves (especially Porto). That brings up the question, "Did the reef have anything to do with the good waves?" I would like to believe so but I'm still a bit skeptical. The waves were so good everywhere due to the combination swell and offshore breeze that peaks were popping up in many areas they never do. When Prattes holds some shape on a closed out NW I'll be a true believer but until then I can only hope. I apologize for having no images to share with you and I'll increase the amount of visits I make to the reef in hopes of getting some tangible proof for you guys.

1-31-01
When asked what the next move would be, Jim Light, a member of the executive committee of the South Bay Chapter responded with the following news:

South Bay Surfrider has had two meetings with Surfrider National on Phase II of Pratte's Reef. The additional monies we are receiving from the Coastal Conservancy are aimed toward environmental monitoring and adding approximately 90 more bags to the reef.

Our main goal is to increase the thickness and height of the reef. This additional thickness, we hope, will help "trip" the wave. The height increase is to bring the reef up to the originally planned depth. We are targeting small- to mid-sized waves under more tide height conditions. Also discussed were methods of placing the bags more accurately.

With all permits in place for Phase II, we plan to order the bags in mid-February and place them in late March or early April. Wind swells could be a problem at this time of year, so we are looking at how to build in contingency time.

Because the consistency of the swell has prevented S.C.U.B.A. dive surveys, we are anxious to see what impact the recent storms have had on the reef and whether the sand around it has moved.

12-28-00
Signs of life! Check short story accompanied by video clip on the Prattes page.

12-1-00
My optimistic take on Prattes Reef is beginning to fade. Today was the biggest swell of the winter (so far) and it had enough West in it to hit all the spots that rarely break. As I headed down Grand Ave. this morning I could hear the surf and knew that there would be some size out there. As I sat in the parking lot waiting for the fog to break I fantasized about scoring perfect Prattes A-frames with nobody out. Hell, I was the only one in the lot and it seems that everyone has already written the project off as a failure so it wasn't beyond the realm of possibility. When the fog lifted there it was...shitty, walled, close outs without a distinguishable peak or bump. It actually looked better in places the reef was not. It even made mostly closed out shitpipe look good. I'm not ready to completely give up on the reef but if the next few storms don't pile up some sand there then you can forget about it until next spring when they drop in some more bags. I'll keep looking when the tide is low and the surf is high. I'll let you know if anything changes. MD

The "Scoop" on Prattes'
More bags next spring!
10-5-00
This morning I received a telephone call from Christopher Evans, (the Executive Director of the Surfrider Foundation) and he informed me that the foundation just received a $200,000.00 grant from the Coastal Conservancy Commission for the reef. The money will be used to monitor the reef and study the beach erosion in the neighboring areas. By next spring the situation will have been thoroughly evaluated and Surfrider will begin dropping sand bags again. Beefing up the reef and dropping in extra bags where they're needed will be the main goal. This will ensure that the reef is set up in such a way that it will be receptive to the majority of swells rolling into our area. Even if it takes 2 years at least the ball is rolling. Last year at this time all we had were Cheverons empty promises. There is still a good chance the reef will break this winter. Stay tuned, we're on it! Click here for an interview with Jose Borrero on the state of the reef

Sept 28, 2000

Apparently, not satisfied with the layout of reef, the crane was once again deployed and an additional 80 sand bags were dropped in yesterday. In my opinion, the reef will not work until we get a north west swell of substance. Although the sand bags are now in place we need some bottom wrenching swells to churn up and deposit the sand in, on and around the reef. Until this happens the reef will exist as a bunch of sand bags, out of sight out of mind. Once the Aluetian Islands start doing there thing we will be better able to judge how well the reef works. Until then, just keep checking back. Remember, nothing good happens overnight.

As for today: A new NW swell began to show at Porto this morning. Not too big, but definitely some headhigh+ sets. I went to observe the initial reaction of the reef to the first swell and I'm sorry to report that it sucked. There was no evidence of a submerged structure, the waves looked just as they always have (in that particular stretch of beach) small and closed out. Keep in mind that the swell was small and the reef has not had an opportunity to collect any new sand. I will be checking it out daily and let you guys know when there is anything worthy of mention.