Two Orange County cities join SANDAG sand restoration project studies – San Diego Union-Tribune

Two Orange County coastal cities have joined San Diego County’s efforts to restore sand to the region’s dwindling beaches for the first time.

The San Diego Association of Governments completed two previous regional projects, in 2001 and 2012, that covered the shoreline from Oceanside to Imperial Beach.

Discussions about a third and possibly larger project began a little over a year ago. Participating San Diego County cities agreed to share the $200,000 needed to launch the initial feasibility study.

City officials in San Clemente and later Dana Point asked to join the project after seeing SANDAG’s public request for proposals from consultants, said Keith Greer, the agency’s deputy director of regional planning.

“It makes sense to us,” Greer said Thursday. “They face the same problems. This allows us to form a partnership to seek funding.”

So far, only the feasibility study currently underway has been paid for. A draft of the study is expected in March, Greer said.

The feasibility study is the first of three stages of the project. The second phase, consisting of engineering and environmental work, has not yet begun, is unfunded and will likely cost more than $3 million.

Construction and monitoring of replenishment will be the third and final phase. The phase was valued at $37 million early last year before other cities came on board. Even if everything quickly falls into place and the money is received, construction is still a long way off.

Adding two Orange County cities more than doubled the cost of the feasibility study, Greer said, and both city councils agreed to pay their share.

For new cities, the cost is higher because data on previous additions was not collected there. That would make San Clemente’s share $109,000 and Dana Point would pay $124,000 for its share of the study, he said.

This is the first time SANDAG has worked with outside agencies on a sand project, he said, although it has previously collaborated with other agencies on issues such as regional transportation and habitat conservation plans.

“The collaboration makes a lot of sense from a coastal planning perspective because the upper portion (northernmost point) of Oceanside’s coastal area begins at the mouth of San Juan Creek at Dana Point,” said Leslie Meyerhoff, San Clemente coastal administrator.

A littoral cell is a self-contained area in which sand is circulated by ocean tides and currents. The Oceanside cell includes all of San Clemente, Dana Point, Camp Pendleton, Oceanside, Carlsbad, Encinitas, Solana Beach, Del Mar, part of the city of San Diego and ends at the UCSD/Scripps Pier.

“We expect to see greater efficiencies and economies of scale by advancing regional coastal resiliency planning and implementing these important public beach restoration projects,” Meyerhoff said Friday.

“We are all facing the same problems caused by the lack of sand in the coastal area,” she said. “By working together, we can save a lot of time and money while advancing our shared goal of restoring the public beach for everyone to enjoy while also protecting critical public infrastructure, existing structures and restoring sandy beach habitat.”

The 2001 SANDAG project placed 2.1 million cubic yards of sand on 12 different beaches from Oceanside to Imperial Beach at a cost of $18 million. The 2012 project was smaller, about 1.5 million cubic yards, because fewer cities could afford to participate and the cost was higher, $26 million. Most of both projects were paid for through state and federal grants.

The sand washes away over time, no matter what. However, scientists are learning more about the restoration process and its benefits.

“These two projects have proven that the idea can be done,” Chris Webb, a coastal scientist with the consulting firm Moffat and Nichol, said at a September meeting of the SANDAG Shoreline Conservation Task Force.

The proposed regional project could be the largest yet. Oceanside alone requested 1 million cubic yards, nearly four times the amount received from harbor dredging this year.

Like most Southern California beach towns, Oceanside experiences a chronic sand shortage, the result of coastal and upstream development, rising sea levels and other factors. Annual dredging of the port produces fine-grained sediments that quickly wash away from the beaches. Additionally, there is only enough material for the beaches between the harbor and the municipal pier, and sometimes a block or two south of the pier.

SANDAG’s proposed landfill would be located further south, below Tyson Street Park, where the beaches are heavily eroded and rarely replenished, Webb said. Also, the sand used for the regional project comes from deposits in the ocean outside the surf zone, where the quality is better and is a coarser material that lasts longer on beaches.

All cities that participated in previous regional projects are expected to receive the same amount of sand or more than they previously received, Webb said. In some locations, deposit areas will be adjusted based on needs and experience.

San Clemente also needs sand, even though it completed the first phase of a long-awaited U.S. Army Corps of Engineers project this year. The project placed approximately 140,000 cubic yards of sand near the city pier.

Other San Clemente beaches north and south of the pier still need protection.

About six miles of coastal railroad between San Diego and Los Angeles runs so close to the shore at San Clemente that waves crash against the tracks during the highest tides of the year. Landslides from cliffs above the tracks stopped passenger traffic for several months.

While the trails would clearly benefit from protecting the wider beach, that is not the immediate goal of the regional project, SANDAG officials said.

“Our program is designed to provide maximum benefit to the community,” Greer said. Each coastal city has recreational facilities and public and private infrastructure that will provide benefits.

The San Clemente section of the railroad is maintained by the Orange County Transportation Authority, which owns the right-of-way for that section of track. It is also part of the vital 351-mile Los Angeles-San Diego-San Diego, or LOSSAN, rail corridor, which is another independent agency.

Recent studies of the possible sources of ocean sand suggest there should be enough for the next round of replenishment.

Core samples taken from seafloor “borrowing sites” near Del Mar and Mission Beach, which supplied sand for previous projects, show large quantities of residual material, said Dave Schug, chief geologist at AECOM.

At the Del Mar site, located away from the race track, about 2 million cubic feet remain in previously dug areas, Schug said. Another 2 million could be obtained by expanding the territory to the north.

Other potential quarries being considered include ocean sand deposits near Torrey Pines, San Elijo Lagoon and the Santa Margarita River at Camp Pendleton.

Preliminary analysis shows beach expansion is worth a multimillion-dollar investment, said Phil King, a retired economics professor at San Francisco State University.

The reliable method, used since the 1950s, takes into account the designated price for a day at the beach (currently $60), visitor turnover, daily footfall and other factors. That shows the proposed project would bring $2 billion in economic benefits to San Diego County alone over 10 years, King said.

“The numbers are incredibly huge,” King said. “The benefits here far outweigh the costs. You can justify this project very easily, even using fairly conservative assumptions.”

The regional SANDAG project is designed to complement several other beach conservation efforts recently completed or planned in the two counties.