Posted on August 17, 2021
The Oceanside City Council voted 4-1 this week to spend $1 million on plans and permits for beach groins and a sand bypass system that Mayor Esther Sanchez said the state will never approve.
“I would prefer to spend this $1 million in getting sand on our beaches immediately,” said Sanchez, who voted no at the meeting Wednesday. “Knowing that the Coastal Commission will not approve this, I think it is a waste of money.”
A second annual sand replenishment project would be a better investment, she said. Most years in the spring, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers dredges the sand that accumulates in the channel of the Oceanside harbor and uses that to beef up nearby beaches.
However, the harbor dredging has been insufficient in recent years, especially for beaches south of the municipal pier, and the city has been looking for other ways to restore its eroding coastline. Studies show the sediment from the harbor is too fine-grained, and it quickly washes away in the surf and tides.
Oceanside built an experimental year-round sand bypass system in the late 1980s that sucked sand from the harbor floor and deposited it on city beaches. The system, which cost about $12 million, was plagued by mechanical and financial difficulties before it was suspended in the early 1990s.
Recently, residents have encouraged the city to resurrect another old idea, building rock groins to hold sand on the beach. City officials have considered groins in years past, but the idea failed to get traction primarily because of environmental concerns.
The proposal calls four 600-foot-long groins, 1,000 feet apart, in the area near Wisconsin Avenue, though the size, location and number of the structures could change as the plan proceeds. The groins would begin at the shoreline rock revetments and extend perpendicular through the surf.
Sanchez said the other coastal mayors in San Diego County have told her they oppose the plan because the rock structures would starve beaches in the cities to the south.
Environmental groups such as Surfrider and the Sierra Club also oppose groins, saying the jetty-like devices cause more harm than good. They point out the California Coastal Commission, which has the final say on construction, has not approved a new groin in more than 20 years.
“We can’t comment on the pilot program directly as we don’t yet have an application on this yet,” said Noaki Schwartz, public information officer for the Coastal Commission.
“What we can say is that the Commission does not have a fixed position on groins,” she said. “While it is rare we get applications for groins, they have been approved in the past, including one in El Segundo in the 1980s to retain a beach to protect the pipeline going from the Chevron facility to the offshore marine terminal. We have also approved repair and maintenance on a number of groins including one at Capitola. Before that, Santa Barbara proposed a semi-permeable groin at Goleta that the Commission denied. The decisions are case by case.”
But some residents said that the Coastal Commission now could be more receptive to the idea, as rising ocean levels take a bigger bite out of seaside cities.
The proposed pilot project includes a sand bypass system that would carry sand from the southern end of Camp Pendleton through a pipe beneath the harbor to feed the beaches protected by the groins.
Construction, if approved, would cost $50 million and is several years away. It would require the approval of numerous local, state and federal agencies, including military officials at Camp Pendleton. The city would have to pay a portion of the costs and find state and federal grants for most of the money.
Still, a majority of the Oceanside City Council backed the idea, which came from the Long Beach consulting firm GHD after a year-long analysis of ways to restore and protect the beaches.
“I want us to do everything we can to bring sand to our city,” said Councilman Ryan Keim, who represents the South Oceanside district with the most depleted beaches. “If they say no, they say no.”
Many of the public speakers at Wednesday’s meeting were Oceanside residents who supported the plan.
“We have virtually no sand left on 90 percent of our Oceanside shoreline,” said John Tenaglia, a resident of the gated Saint Malo Beach community at the city’s southwestern corner.
“Four groins are not enough,” Tenaglia said, suggesting the city expand the program. “We should go the whole way down the shoreline.”
Thor Stensrud, a resident of South Pacific Street for almost 50 years, supported a different proposal studied by the consultant that calls for the construction of two artificial reefs to hold back the sand.
Reefs ranked lower than groins in the consultant’s analysis because while the reefs could be expected to preserve more sand, the project would be more costly at almost $150 million and the outcome is uncertain. That did not deter Stensrud.
“Think big,” he said. “Choose the method that retains the most sand … the submerged reefs.”
That project would pay off in the end by boosting the city’s tourism business, he said.
Another longtime resident and surfer, Carolyn Krammer, opposed any hard structures built on the beach and recommended the city stick with sand replenishment projects.
Artificial reefs or groins will “obliterate our sand bars,” and surfing could be negatively affected, Krammer said.
Several speakers said reefs or groins would stop the flow of sand to southern cities the same way the harbor stops sand from reaching Oceanside.
“These proposed projects are really going to steal all of your southern neighbors’ sand,” said Kristin Brinner, a Solana Beach resident and Surfrider member.
“We are all concerned about sea-level rise,” Brinner said. “There is a serious need for a long-term solution.”
But groins, reefs and sand replenishment do nothing in the long term, she said, and the only real solution is to move development away from the vulnerable areas of the coast.
The idea of backing away from the coast, often called “planned retreat” or “managed retreat,” is hugely controversial and generally opposed by most beachfront homeowners, who have millions of dollars invested in their coastal property.
“Managed retreat is an unacceptable option,” said Bob Ashton, another Oceanside resident who supported the groins.
“The current state of the beach is the worst I can recall in my 59 years,” Ashton said. “Sand replenishment without sand retention is a fool’s errand. Groins work.”
