Ssssssss.

That's the sound of credibility leaking from the inflatable arguments raised by the Surfrider Foundation against the completion of the 241 Toll Road, which it views as the focus of evil in the modern world...at least as a terrific fund raising and recruitment foil.

Readers may have seen the article in today's OC Register:

Building the Foothill South toll road will have no effect whatever on surfing conditions at the famous Trestles beach, according a noted oceanographer, whose scathing criticism of assertions by environmental activists was released this week.

Richard Seymour, a research engineer at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and an oceanographic consultant, was hired by the Foothill/Eastern Transportation Corridor Agency to examine a series of studies of the road's potential effects on surfing. The studies were conducted by the toll road agency and by the environmental group Surfrider Foundation.

You can read Seymour's report by clicking here.

Seymour flays the flesh from Surfrider "studies" claiming completing the 241 will somehow destroy the world-famous surf break at Trestles -- a useful claim for riling up surfers and convincing them to show up at public hearings to oppose the 241 (not to mention playing to their opposition to making it any easier for 909ers to crowd their waves).
The Surfrider Foundation denies Seymour's report does any such thing. The again, what else are they going to say?

From the OC Reg article:

The main problem, Seymour said, was the Surfrider consultant's assertion that fine sediment washed down San Mateo Creek as a result of the toll road's construction could interfere with cobbles that also are washed down the creek and into the ocean.

Seymour said that would not occur. The toll agency has pledged to control all sediment during construction.

The Sufrider consultant developed an "ad hoc" theory that "this very fine sediment was somehow going to prevent the cobbles from moving down to the beach," Seymour said in an interview. "This is ridiculous on its face."

A second error, he contended, was the consultant's assumption that, if the cobbles were interfered with, the surf breaks Trestles is known for would be disrupted.

"In the first place, it's a totally bogus theory, and is directly opposed by several real experts in this field of water transport - river transportation of sediment and rock," Seymour said.

Surfrider's Mark Rauscher responds with the straw man:

"When you're grading these millions of cubic yards of land, and literally flattening 20 canyons and valleys, it's pretty amazing to think they would say it would have zero change on the land," Rauscher said.

Yeah, but no one is saying there won't the be any change to the landscape. The point of contention here is the Trestles wave break, which is located in the ocean, not on land.

Rauscher continues:

Rauscher said he doubted Seymour's report would diminish opposition to the toll road because there are larger issues at stake.

In other words, the Surfrider Foundation and their fellow travelling 241 opponents don't really care if their studies are factual. They want to stop the 241, and could care less if TCA studies were endorsed by the Almighty Himself.

"Trestles is more than just the wave you ride," he said. "It's the whole experience. You have this incredible hike down to the beach, surrounded by native plants and wildlife, and this wonderful, uninterrupted watershed that feeds that beach. And this road will change all of that.

When facts fail them, Surfrider predictably falls back on gauzy, emotional rhetoric the way a photographer uses a soft-focus lens.

Press on, TCA.