Getting Sand on our Beaches is Our Primary Goal
Save Our Beaches has a pretty definite goal: restore and maintain sand on our beaches. We wish this was a simple task of simply informing our elected officials of this desire, hiring a dredge or renting some tracks and just getting down to work. Unfortunately, government bureaucracy, conflicting agencies, high costs, and logistical challenges means that the process is less straight-forward than we desire.
Our four-point gameplan below involves actors at all levels, from federal, state, regional, and city government agencies. Each agency has a role to play, and Save Our Beaches has spent the last year carefully researching the best and most productive pathways to achieving our goal.
Maintain the Federal Project for the central city beaches
OVERVIEW OF THE FEDERAL PROJECT
The Federal Project began with a Feasibility Study conducted by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in 2010. The study looked at the city-wide coastline for sand replenishment. They conducted a cost-benefit analysis using the then-current rates of erosion and anticipated maintenance costs related to the City’s and OCTA’s infrastructure, and including the beach’s economic benefit to the City. The amount of eligible Federal funding was not high enough to replenish sand along our entire coastline, so the project was developed to protect the location of the City’s most significant infrastructure and economic benefit.
The project was not funded until 2023 with the help of Congressman Mike Levin. The $15M price tag was shared amongst the Federal, State, and City government, with the City paying approximately $1M. The project is intended to place 250,000 cubic yards of sand between Linda Lane and T-Street, adding an additional 50 feet width to the beach. The sand was to have been obtained from a borrow site offshore from Oceanside.
THE 2024 FEDERAL PROJECT IS ENCOUNTERING DIFFICULTIES
As of February 2024, the Federal project is on hold. The Oceanside borrow site was found to contain a significant surface layer of cobble, and after numerous attempts to get to the lower sand layer, the dredger was moved to its next project at Solana Beach. Meanwhile, the Corps is exploring ways to either: 1. get better sand from the Oceanside borrow site; or 2. get permitted to use a different borrow site such as Solana, where the contractor is currently obtaining good sand.
The City is not in charge of this project, but our officials have done an extraordinary job of ensuring the best outcome for our beaches. We need to support the City in its efforts to ensure that only high quality beach sand is brought to our coastline.
FUTURE FEDERAL PROJECTS WILL NEED ADDITIONAL FUNDING AND A BETTER SOURCE OF SAND
The Federal Project is slated to be undertaken every six years for the next 50 years, with the Federal government paying only 50% of the price tag for future replenishments. The City will be eligible for State funding from the Department of Boating and Waterways for additional funding, however, the City will need to come up with significantly more funding in the future.
In addition to finding more funding, we need to find a better source of sand closer to San Clemente. Oceanside is expecting to pay only $20 per cubic yard for sand from its nearby borrow site; the Federal project for San Clemente is paying at least twice that much due to transportation costs. The City has applied for a grant to explore new borrow sites; if the grant is not approved, we believe that it makes good financial sense for the City to fund the study.
We have been told by the Corps that this project cannot be expanded, or a second Federal Project initiated, without cancelling the current project. We believe that this should not be true, and support the City and our Congressional Representatives in continuing to explore federal funding to expand this project to other areas of our coastline.
2. Find short-term sand for beaches outside of Federal Project
The location of the Federal Project was determined based upon economic value to the City, however, the central beaches are the widest and most stable. The most critically-eroded portions of our coastline are at the northern and southern ends. Dredging programs may be in the future, but they take years to develop. Opportunistic sand programs, utilizing sand from inland sources, can be developed more quickly. Opportunistic sand is typically delivered via truck, at a high financial and environmental expense.
Save Our Beaches recognizes these urgent needs, and have been working on a plan to deliver sand to these locations using delivery by rail.
THE “SAND VIA RAIL” PROPOSED PROGRAM
The most logistically simple means of delivering sand to our beaches is via the rail system. Rail transport is also the cheapest means, and avoids the significant environmental, air quality, and traffic impacts.
We have identified a free source of sand from the Prado Dam near Corona CA. This dam is estimated to be almost 90% filled with sediment, which needs to be extracted in order to maintain the dam’s effectiveness at flood control. Orange County Department of Public Works estimates that at least 125,000 cubic yards will need to be removed over the next five years.
Prado Dam is located adjacent to OCTA rail lines and we understand that there are sidings (ancillary spurs of the railroad) nearby where railcars could be lined up and loaded. The transport distance via rail would be approximately 40 miles.
Offloading could be achieved either through side-dumping (where the revetment is low enough) or by a top-mounted excavator.
This program could be best implemented at Poche, Shorecliffs (via Poche Beach), Capistrano Shores (via privately-owned land just north of Capo Shores), North State Beach, Cyprus Shores, and Cottons.
OCTA MITIGATION PROGRAM
Save Our Beaches has spent considerable effort addressing the need for OCTA to mitigate the harm that it has caused through the dumping of tens of thousands of tons of rock on the Cyprus Shores and Cottons beaches. Mitigation should be required for: 1) the loss of lateral public access; 2) loss of beach and future impacts to beach; and 3) impacts to surfing caused by the rocks.
Mitigation is required by the California Coastal Commission and OCTA has proposed paying about $300,000 in “in lieu fees” for beach restoration in “another area of Orange County.” Save Our Beaches has spoken out against that proposal very firmly.
“Loss of public access” occurs because people used to be able to walk on the beach between San Clemente and San Onofre State Beaches, as part of the California Coastal Trail. That access is now blocked by the rocks placed by OCTA for landslide remediation, which extend about 70 feet seaward of the railroad tracks, and no access is viable even during low tides.
“Loss of beach” arises because the rocks were placed directly on the sand (including below high tide), displacing the natural beach environment. Furthermore, the presence of the rocks creates more turbulence and erosion and precludes the formation of a natural beach. Finally, the landslide revetment hinders the process of natural longshore drift, which is bi-directional at this location, thereby seasonally starving both the northern and southern sides of the revetment.
Save Our Beaches has developed a proposed mitigation plan to address these two losses. This entails the restoration of the California Coastal Trail between the two state parks, in two sections: 1) require OCTA to restore and maintain a dry sandy beach between the pedestrian underpass at the San Clemente State Beach campground and the pedestrian underpass at Cyprus Shores; 2) construct a new pedestrian trail on the east (landward) side of the railroad (within its Right-of-Way) between the Cyprus Shores underpass and San Onofre State Beach.
More information on this proposal can be found at the links below.
3. Develop a comprehensive sand replenishment plan
San Clemente needs a comprehensive plan for sand replenishment across our entire coastline. Even if the various ownership (City, state, county, private) ends up meaning that different funding methods are necessary, nature doesn’t understand or respect property boundaries, so we should look at this as a complete entity, within the context of our neighboring towns to the north and south.
The San Diego Regional Association of Governments (SANDAG) has undertaken two previous successful Regional Beach Sand Projects (RBSP) in 2001 and 2011, and is currently planning its RBSP III. In late 2023, the City (after much advocacy from Save Our Beaches) signed a Memorandum of Understanding with SANDAG to be a part of this program. We understand that SANDAG’s consultant is already working on a Feasibility Study to accomplish comprehensive sand replenishment. We further understand that the City of Dana Point has also entered into an agreement with SANDAG, so our entire littoral cell will be evaluated consistently and comprehensively.
4. Fund and implement comprehensive sand replenishment
After the plan is developed, the difficult part begins: funding and implementing the projects. It remains to be evaluated whether sand retention structures are necessary (see next section) and whether sand replenishment or sand retention should be undertaken first.
Permitting projects sometimes requires years, involving numerous agencies at federal, state, county, and local levels.
Funding issues are discussed in a subsequent section.
