Posted on November 20, 2017
By Phil Diehl, The San Diego Union-Tribune
A three-year study of possible solutions to Oceanside beach erosion has stalled after federal funding dried up and now the city is being asked to pony up as much as $1 million to restart it, a city official said Wednesday.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers launched its “shoreline feasibility study” in March 2016 to examine the effects the Camp Pendleton harbor, built in 1942, has on Oceanside beaches. The city’s harbor, built in the 1960s, shares its entrance.
“The ultimate goal is to get more sand on the beaches,” said Kiel Koger, the city’s public works director.
Studies as early as the 1950s have shown the jetty that extends out into the ocean from the harbor’s mouth diverts sand that currents otherwise would carry onto the beaches. Other sources of beach sand such as rivers and bluffs also have been stopped by steady development over the last century.
Last year, when the latest study began, it was to be 100 percent federally funded, Koger said.
However, the money stopped this year, and now the Corps is asking Oceanside to kick in half the remaining costs so that work can resume.
“They said it will probably be about $1.5 million to $2 million to complete … total,” he said, and it will take about two more years to finish the study.
A similar federal study in Solana Beach and Encinitas set the basis for a 50-year sand replenishment project that was allocated $87 million last year as part of the federal Water Resources Development Act. That project, planned for more than 15 years, could begin as soon as next year. It would use sand from offshore deposits to widen beaches by 50 to 150 feet in those two cities, which, along with the state, will share portions of the estimated $165 million total cost over the next five decades.
An Army Corps spokesman was unavailable Wednesday to discuss the Oceanside study. Another Corps project in Oceanside, the San Luis Rey River flood-control excavation, fell through because of problems with the contractor after work was scheduled to begin this fall. That project also would have placed more sand on the city’s beaches.
Oceanside beaches south of the harbor have eroded steadily since the 1940s. Only a narrow strip of sand remains in most spots south of the municipal pier. Structures along the shore are protected by rock revetments and by annual beach replenishment with sand pumped from the harbor and other sources.
Like all coastal San Diego County cities, Oceanside depends on its beaches for tourism, recreation, and protection of its coastal structures from the ocean waves.
The goal of the current feasibility study is to gather more information about beach erosion and the possible solutions to it.
“The Corps has been working on and off on these feasibility studies since about 2000,” Koger said. A previous effort also ended when funding for it was cut.
Oceanside officials have asked the Corps for a letter that outlines details of the expected costs for the remaining work and the time it will take, Koger said.
Once that it received, the Corps’ request for local funding will be presented to the City Council for a decision.
Source: The San Diego Union-Tribune
