Posted on May 30, 2025
After a decade of debate, permitting, environmental review, planning, and funding delays, the San Mateo County Harbor District last week approved contracts for the long-anticipated harbor dredging and Surfer’s Beach restoration project. Crews plan to begin staging equipment in June and aim to complete the project by Oct. 15.
“That was a huge step. This is a pilot project to see if it’s gonna work or how it works,” Harbor District General Manager James Pruett said, explaining how the project is one of the first to use dredging material to restore a beach in a marine sanctuary. “So that when we do more projects along the Coastside, this will be the guide for that.”
The project will remove accumulated sand deposits near the harbor boat launch and the east breakwater. More than 100,000 cubic yards of clean sediment from the harbor will be pumped to Surfer’s Beach to restore a 1,000-foot stretch of shoreline and combat ongoing erosion.
“It’s a significant project because the harbor has been silting in for decades, and as a result, it’s becoming shallow and difficult for boats to navigate,” Pruett said. “So we’re restoring the harbor to its proper depth, and instead of dumping the sand at sea—which would be extremely costly and offer no benefit—we’re using it in a more beneficial way. The breakwater has caused damage to the Coastside, so there’s long been a need to replenish Surfer’s Beach—not just for public enjoyment, but also to serve as a natural barrier to the Pacific Ocean.”
The total project cost is about $5.3 million, with a 10% contingency for unforeseen challenges. Of that amount, roughly $2.94 million will come from the district’s available working capital, with the remaining $2.88 million funded by a grant from the California Ocean Protection Council.
A key factor driving the project timeline is the presence of eelgrass growing on the sand deposits slated for removal. Because eelgrass is a protected species, the Harbor District developed a mitigation plan to relocate it to other areas within the harbor. Crews must complete the transfer by Aug. 1 to align with the eelgrass growing season. Before the transfer, a 4- to 5-acre underwater platform must be constructed and allowed to settle underwater near the eelgrass for about three weeks. After a brief window to allow for further habitat settlement, the crews will begin pumping the accumulated sediment from the harbor to Surfer’s Beach, which will consume the remainder of the work time after the eelgrass transfer.
According to coastal management consultant Brad Damitz, biological study teams and contractors are working this week to establish a timeline for when members of the public can expect construction activity around the harbor and how that may affect public access. Pruett also confirmed that a public meeting will be held in June to share findings on what the construction will look like for the public.
“We tailored the technical specification very carefully to avoid, as much as possible, impacts to public use, [like] the boat launch ramps,” Damitz said. “There may be some minor temporary closures as they mobilize equipment and stuff, but we think we can do it in a way where the pipeline is not going to interfere with the pedestrian and recreational trail except maybe when they’re moving equipment.”
The Harbor District also approved $1,75 million to “cover all remaining soft costs for the Surfer’s Beach Restoration Pilot Project and the Pillar Point Harbor Wide Eelgrass Mitigation Program over the next 5.5 years through Project Construction and 5-year Monitoring and Adaptive Management Phases.”
“This is a pilot project being conducted in a national marine sanctuary where nothing like this has happened before, and in order for them to permit it, the other agencies … asked us to kind of look at where the sand goes, how long it stays in, and all kinds of details like that,” Damitz said. Those observations can help answer questions for future projects.
According to the five-year plan, monitoring will include aerial drone surveys, time-lapse cameras, the installation of new tide gauges in the harbor, and the deployment of a new wave buoy to collect wave data.
