So, what to do about the inexorable erosion of Goleta Beach Park?
People first came to live in the land that we now call Goleta about 13,000 years ago. At that time the coast was littered with wide and productive estuaries at the mouth of every drainage that flowed out of the Santa Ynez Mountains from Carpinteria to Hollister Ranch. They lived simple and rich lives from the shellfish easily gathered from the estuaries and the small seeds from the chaparral plants on the nearby shore. The sea levels were low, due to all the glaciation to the north; the canyons out of the mountains were deep and broad, all the way to the sea, where they formed the productive habitats on which the progenitors of the Chumash lived and thrived.
The glaciers melted. The sea levels rose. The estuaries were inundated. Things changed, and the people living in these spaces changed their habits.