Posted on October 14, 2024
ENCINITAS — The Encinitas City Council reviewed a presentation Wednesday night from the Nature Collective, which highlighted the urgent need for dredging at the San Elijo Lagoon inlet to remove sand buildup that is causing low oxygen levels and threatening local wildlife.
A supplemental dredging project, which will be managed by Pacific Dredge and Construction and is expected to take six to eight weeks to complete, is planned to begin in November or December. It involves removing excess sand to restore water flow in the lagoon.
The project will include around-the-clock operations, with dredged sand transported via a pipeline to the nearby Cardiff shoreline.
“We’re going to have to go in and do our excavation, probably a two- to three-day project to clean out the sand in front of the inlet and under the 101 Bridge,” said Doug Gibson of the Nature Collective in a presentation. “Once we do that, we’ll move that to roughly the Chart House, and who knows, if we get big storms, we might be able to even take some to the living shorelines,”
While the Nature Collective has secured funding for routine maintenance dredging through an endowment from the Coastal Conservancy, Gibson emphasized that additional funds are necessary to cover the unanticipated scale of this dredging project. He called for support from the San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG) and other potential funding sources.
Gibson noted that without the dredging, the lagoon’s deteriorating conditions could have long-term effects on the local environment. He added that emergency measures, including manual excavation, were used in the past to alleviate similar conditions, but a more permanent solution is now required.
“As water levels rise, it starts to impact endangered species like the Belding’s Savannah sparrow and the Ridgway rails within the lagoon system because they only nest in the salt marsh area,” Gibson said during his presentation.
The San Elijo Lagoon restoration project is part of a broader initiative to preserve and enhance the region’s natural habitats. The $120 million initiative, supported by SANDAG, Caltrans, the city of Encinitas, and environmental organizations, is funded by the TransNet half-cent sales tax.
The restoration work also included enlarging and deepening the channel beneath the bridge to enhance water flow. New wetland areas and mudflats were created to boost the ecosystem, and trails were added for community access.
The upcoming dredging will be a critical step in ensuring the lagoon remains a viable habitat for local wildlife.
“The negative impacts of having the inlet closed involves the lagoon becoming hypoxic, where the dissolved oxygen goes to zero,” Gibson said. “And then fish do this funny thing, where they start floating on the surface, and then the birds sometimes come in and eat them.”
