San Clemente officials have approved hauling and pumping even more sand to the city’s eroding shoreline in coming months, continuing projects in North Beach and the area north and south of the San Clemente Pier.
Because the North Beach project is under budget, the City Council agreed Tuesday night, Sept. 17, to have more sand trucked to the stretch of shoreline.
Workers, since late July, have been hauling in truckloads of sand from the Santa Ana River to build up the North Beach, a replenishment needed not just for recreational space, but to provide a buffer from the waves for the oceanfront rail line.
The contractor, GCI, is finishing up the original scope of work to bring in 30,000 cubic yards – expected to take 90 days – under budget and within just 45 days, according to city staff.
“The operation there looks like a precision military operation, with those dozens of trucks coming in and out like a ballet,” said Councilman Steve Knoblock. “They really are doing a phenomenal job.”
Since the operation is already underway, city officials voted to add an additional 7,000 cubic yards to the project, which will still be within the $2 million budget approved and allocated for the effort earlier this year.
“It’s a great project,” said Mayor Victor Cabral. “There’s been a number of people now using that beach who were never there before because of the rocks.”
City officials also approved finishing a project with the US Army Corps of Engineers that is replenishing sand near the San Clemente Pier.
That project got underway early in the year and – after a few early snags and the need to move dredge sites – delivered about 114,000 cubic yards of the expected 251,000 cubic yards of sand by the time it had to stop work in the spring. Because the contractor Manson had other obligations, the dredger had to leave the area, said Coastal Administrator Leslea Meyerhoff.
The project spans from Linda Lane to T Street and is designed to create a 50-foot wide beach berm, adding to the sand space.
Manson’s West Coast Hopper can return in late October to complete the final 86,000 cubic yards of sand.
The city is expected to have to pay an additional $2.6 million toward the completion of the project.
The additional cost stems from having to move the borrow site where the sand is being dredged from because the original site was producing a rocky mix of material. The move from off Oceanside to off Sunset-Surfside means a longer distance for the dredger to travel moving the sand. The contractor also has to remobilize its pipelines and other construction staging.
The city’s portion represents a 35% cost share with the federal government. It’s an important investment, Meyerhoff said, for coastal storm damage reduction.
“That’s the natural function of a beach. So if you have a wider beach, you have more diffusion of winter storm waves,” she said. “That’s the primary goal, to not only provide recreational benefit, but also shoreline protection and sandy beach habitat as well. So by making this project go to completion, we would have even less wave energy impacting our beaches.”
The original cost of the project was about $15 million, though the final project price will be unknown until it is completed.
“We need as much sand as we can get in North Beach,” Teddy Khan told the council at Tuesday’s meeting during the public comments. “This is a really inspiring example of a government project coming in under budget, and we have the opportunity now to add even more sand for no additional cost, and show the public just how efficient the city can be with these types of programs.”
With the concreting of channels and inland development that has locked in sand supply from reaching the coast, among other reasons the region is suffering from a lack of sand, the city needs to find ways to keep its beaches sandy, he said.
“There’s simply no other way today to bring back our beaches,” he said. “Recurring sand replenishment replaces that which we’ve lost.”
The Army Corps of Engineer’s project, which took 20 years to plan and get funded, is expected to be repeated every five to seven years. But Councilmember Knoblock said other less expensive ways to get sand should be explored.
In future years, the Army Corps project is set to be a 50-50 cost-sharing project, meaning the city will shoulder more of the burden than it did for this first installment.
“I think, as we go forward in the future,” he said, “I can see the possibility that the Army Corps project may fade, potentially completely, if we have other options.”
