Posted on December 5, 2024
Oceanside is working on a first of its kind coastal restoration project. It will be along the coast from Tyson St and Wisconsin Ave.
OCEANSIDE, Calif. — Oceanside is planning a first of its kind coastal restoration project. The concept has been successful on Australia’s Gold Coast, but is new to North America.
The project will restore the one-and-a-half mile strip of Oceanside Beach from Tyson Street Park to Wisconsin Avenue. Erosion over the years has caused this part of the beach to lose sand, leaving just rocks between the sidewalk and ocean, except during low tide.
Oceanside residents such as Crystal are excited to get some of their beach back.
“We walk this beach every day, maybe twice a day, for the last 19 years,” Crystal said. “It’s necessary, we need that so bad for everyone, for the locals and for everyone that’s coming.”
Although, others are skeptical on how the pilot project will turn out.
“Almost any plan will be pretty hard to make it stick,” Oceanside Resident Mike Mcentire said. “I hope it works for sure, Oceanside needs to not lose all their beaches.”
Jayme Timberlake is the Coastal Zone Administrator for Oceanside.
“We’re going to be placing two, basically parks that will extend out and act like headlands,” she said.
The headlands will be places on the coast of Tyson Street and Wisconsin Avenue. This will allow the sand to move from north to south. Another part of the project will be an artificial reef.
“Offshore what we’ll be doing is placing a large, very large, eight ton, four ton, two ton, rocks that will become a reef,” Timberlake said. “And that reef will help break up that wave energy a little bit.”
That’s why they’re calling it a “living speed bump project”. The waves will break a little bit offshore so it will be less impactful when it reaches the shoreline.
“All these things will help create a wider beach and eliminate some of those very drastic erosive forces that were at play on our on our coastline,” Timberlake said.
Now that the location is picked, the next steps will be to move into final design and engineering of what the reef is going to look like, how much sand is needed and how far out the headlands are going to extend. They will also start working to obtain permits.
Construction is expected to begin at the end of 2026. It’s estimated to cost between $30 million and $50 million. The money will come from a new sales tax in Oceanside along with potential grants and government money.
As progress on the project continues, public outreach will be done to see what residents would like to see placed on the headlands. Suggestions include benches, seating areas and barbeques.
