Posted on August 8, 2016
By Edward Sifuentes, The San Diego Union-Tribune
The annual dredging of the Oceanside Harbor that was supposed to have been finished by Thursday will likely take another month to complete.
City officials say the project has been plagued with problems this year, including a late start and numerous delays related to the equipment used by a new contractor hired by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which oversees the dredging. The work is typically done in the spring and is finished by Memorial Day but it didn’t start this year until June 6.
The dredging permit issued by the state Coastal Commission expired Thursday, but Oceanside City Manager Michelle Lawrence said the work will continue.
“They (Army Corps) applied for an extension and I was told that they were given an OK to extend through the end of the month,” Lawrence said.
A spokesman for the Army Corps did not return phone calls seeking comment Thursday.
Each year, the federal agency removes about 180,000 cubic yards of sand from the harbor, where ocean currents deposit it, creating a sandbar. Without the dredging the sandbar grows and makes it difficult for boats to enter safely.
The slow pace of this year’s dredging is frustrating to vendors like Donna Kalez, general manager of Oceanside Adventures, who said her whale-watching company has had to cancel 36 trips since the project began because its 50-foot catamaran can’t safely exit the harbor.
“It hurts our business more than you can imagine,” she said.
Not only do the cancellations disappoint her customers, but they leave her staff —including the boat’s crew and office personnel — without work to do, Kalez said.
The contract this year called for the removal of 260,000 cubic yards to be taken and deposited on city beaches. By Wednesday, contractor CJW Construction had dredged about a third of that — 86,000 cubic yards, according to the latest status report posted on the Army Corps’ website.
Oceanside had hoped to use the extra sand to replenish its sand-starved beaches. Instead, City Hall has been fielding complaints from tourists and business owners about the bulky equipment, noise and other problems. City officials say there is little they can do except pressure the Army Corps to finish the job quickly and ask that the contractor be replaced before next year’s dredging begins.
“It’s really bad,” Councilman Jerry Kern said. “It’s been really disappointing and we’re stuck.”
Councilman Chuck Lowery said city is also being affected.
“We have no input into their (Army Corps) decisions but that doesn’t stop us from telling them they’ve made a mistake that cost the city a lot of taxpayer dollars,” Lowery said.
Part of the problem this year is that CJW — which recently won the dredging contract — has smaller equipment than the previous contractor and has had to stop its operations repeatedly during high swells.
In late June, Mayor Jim Wood sent a letter to the Army Corps complaining about several potential safety hazards that had been reported. Those allegations included a bulldozer operating on the beach without a spotter; a dredge pipe left open and accessible when not in use; dredge pipes floating near the surface of the water at the harbor; and a vessel that was damaged when it ran over one of the lines.
The dredging is designed to keep the harbor entrance at a depth of about 25 feet. Kern said he and other city officials went on a city boat to inspect the work two weeks ago and measured the depth at about 8 feet.
Source: The San Diego Union-Tribune
