Visitors watch the seals from the boardwalk at the viewing area along Highway 1, south of Piedras Blancas.
Following the success of the public boardwalk along the southern end of the Piedras Blancas elephant seal viewing area, three state agencies want to put a similar walkway on the northern end.
The county Planning Department plans to hold a hearing today about issuing a coastal development permit for the $300,000 project.
State Parks, the California Coastal Conservancy and the California Conservation Corps would cooperate on the boardwalk.
The goal is to connect the parking lot at the primary viewing area with another that’s midway between the rookery and the Piedras Blancas Light Station to the north.
Caltrans, which controls the parking lot and the vista points, already has issued State Parks an encroachment permit, which is required for any work within the highway’s right of way.
The popular seal colony is 12 miles north of Cambria, within sight of those driving on Highway 1.
The boardwalk would be useful for the same reasons it is on the south end of the primary viewing area, said Nick Franco, superintendent of the State Parks district that includes the seal rookery.
“The boardwalk not only protects elephant seals from visitors and visitors from the elephant seals,” he said, “it also helps prevent further erosion of the coastal bluff.”
After years of “many thousands of feet walking on the area,” the north-end bluff top has become even more hazardous, he said. It is much narrower than the south-end bluff, he said, which makes the new boardwalk that much more essential, especially as the colony continues to grow.
Franco is cautiously hopeful that the state’s budget crisis won’t affect the boardwalk project’s state-bond grants.
The protective walkway’s actual length will depend on funding and how much work Conservation Corps members can accomplish for the money.
“They are so good at being cost-effective,” he said.
Brian Hatfield, marine biologist with the U.S. Geological Survey, said 4,100 pups were born at the rookery during the 2006-07 birthing season, which extrapolates to about 15,000 of the massive mammals using the beach during the year.
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