Real Estate, Greed, and Nature lost

To dramatize how coastlines can be forever changed, I've assembled some aerial photos of Sunset Beach and Surfside, CA. The saltwater marshes behind Sunset beach were once home to thousands of ducks, pelicans, fish fry (baby fish), clams, shorebirds, mice, crawfish, hawks, foxes, wild pigs, snakes, and sometimes wandering kids. We just called it "the slough", and if I'd known about the snakes and pigs, I might not have gone out there as much!

 

Above is my home town, Sunset Beach, in July 1956. The beach was small, but the marshes were vast then. That area I drew in 1961, on the previous post, is just left of the center.

 

Here it is today!

Here's That part I drew in 1961, today. The old railway is a park (nice!) However, the beach is sterile, no more clams and only scavenger birds; and it's littered with enough plastic and other debris as to be visible from space! The old slough,once to the right, is all built out.