Nama : Jesica Indah Yuliantari
Jurusan : UPW
Descriptive text about Glass Beach in California
Glass Beach is a popular attraction in Fort Bragg California, where the beach is covered in small
pieces of smoothed glass that is abundant in sea glass created from years of dumping garbage
into an area of coastline near the northern part of the town.
In 1906, Fort Bragg residents established an official water dump site behind the Union Lumber
Company onto what is now known as "Site 1". Most water fronted communities had water dump
sites discarding glass, appliances, and even vehicles.[2] Locals referred to it as "The Dumps."[3]
Fires were often lit to reduce the size of the trash pile. When the original dump site filled in
1943, the site was moved to what is now known as "Site 2", the active dump site from 1943 until
1949. When this beach filled in 1949, the dump was moved north to what is now known as
"Glass Beach", which remained an active dump site until 1967.
The California State Water Resources Control Board and city leaders closed this area in 1967.[2]
[3] Various cleanup programs were undertaken through the years to correct the damage. Over the
next several decades, what was biodegradable in the dump sites simply degraded and all the
metal and other items were eventually removed and sold as scrap or used in art. The pounding
waves broke down the glass and pottery and tumbled those pieces into the small, smooth, colored
pieces that often become jewelry quality and that cover Glass Beach and the other two glass
beaches (former dump sites) in Fort Bragg. There are three Glass Beach sites in Fort Bragg
where trash was dumped into the ocean between 1906 and 1967. Site Two (1943-1949) and
Three (1949–1967 - "Glass Beach") are located at the end of the path that begins on the corner of
Elm Street and Glass Beach Drive. These sites are accessible by foot and by a short climb down
the cliffs surrounding the beach. Site One (1906–43) is 1/4 mile south of Site Two and has
become accessible by foot as of January 2015 when the northern section of the new Coastal Trail
in Fort Bragg opened.
In 1998, the private owner of the property began a five-year process of working with the
California Coastal Conservancy and the California Integrated Waste Management Board for the
cleanup and sale of the property to the state. Following completion of the clean up, the California
Department of Parks and Recreation purchased the 38-acre (15 ha) Glass Beach property, and it
was incorporated into MacKerricher State Park in October 2002. Most of the actual "Glass
Beach", Site 3, is "adjacent" to MacKerricher State Park. All entities in California end at the
mean high water mark (MHW), according to Article 10 of the state constitution. In Fort Bragg,
the mean high water mark is 5.2', and most of Glass Beach is below that water mark. Sites 1 and
2 are located south of "Glass Beach" and do not abut the state park area, though they abut the
new city park area, which also ends at the mean high water mark (MHW).
The beach is now visited by tens of thousands of tourists yearly. About 1,000 to 1,200 tourists
visit Fort Bragg's glass beaches each day in the summer. As word of this unique beach spread,
more and more visitors descended onto Glass Beach. Drawn to the beautifully smoothed and
rounded glass, visitors began pocketing the glass with each visit. This has greatly diminished the
amount of glass on the beach. In addition to searching for glass, the beach has an interesting
array of tide pools to explore. Crabs, mollusks, and many aquatic plants make their homes in
these ever-changing environments. Several endangered and protected native plants occur at Glass
Beach including hybrid Menzies' wallflower.
