A delayed sand project that aims at replenishing San Clemente’s beaches will resume this week, following several months of uncertainty around the long-awaited effort.
Workers were busy the past several days erecting fencing and staging the construction area on the south side of the pier and in the nearby parking lot, readying the area for when the contractor, Manson Construction, brings in its dredging boat to haul sand from offshore of the Surfside-Sunset area on the north end of the county.
The limits of an air quality permit that allows for less than a month more of work means the city will only receive about half of the estimated 251,000 cubic yards of sand the project calls for, but the plan is to finish the first part of the project by Memorial Day and complete the rest of the work in October, said Mayor Victor Cabral.
“We’re excited about it,” Cabral said. “It will probably only be half the beach … but it will also leave the summer open for recreational activities. It’s a good move forward and obviously this is a long-term project. It’s the first step for many more to come.”
The San Clemente Beach Nourishment project between T Street and Linda Lane is expected to pick up where it left off in early January, following only a few days of work riddled with complications. First, the dredging machinery broke several times and needed repairs, and then the site offshore Oceanside selected by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers was producing more rocks and cobble than soft, fluffy sand.
City officials sent a letter to the Army Coprs and the contractor asking them to pause the project until a better sand source could be determined.
The total cost of the project is still unclear, with increases expected due to the delays and the longer distance to travel north to Surfside, about 30 miles away, to obtain sand instead of the closer Oceanside site, which is about 18 miles away.
The original cost was $14 million; an agreement divides the responsibility between the federal government (65%) and local agencies (35%).
Army Corps officials told the city a few weeks ago it could be on the hook for $2.6 million in added costs, funding city officials said San Clemente does not have.
Cabral said that figure is now closer to $1.5 million and the city, along with its federal elected officials, has asked the Army Corps to waive the added fees.
The goal of the project is to widen the beach by 50 feet along a 3,214-foot-long stretch. It is expected – pending future federal funding and permitting approvals – the replenishment would be repeated every six years for the next 50 years, for a total of 2 million cubic yards.
The project has been in the planning stages for more than 20 years, one of several that hope to battle chronic erosion problems up and down the Southern California coast that threaten homes and infrastructure as sand shrinks, allowing the ocean to creep closer.
The sand serves as not only a beach buffer, but also valuable recreational space – and without it, the region’s tourism and revenue would suffer, officials argue.
On Monday, workers in hard hats and vests continued preparing the area ahead of the work that is expected to start mid week, following the dredger completing a sand replenishment project in San Diego. A sign on a submerged pipe just south of the pier warns beachgoers to keep off the equipment.
The work will occur seven days a week to allow the quickest sand placement possible.
Curtis Cummings on Monday morning was picking trash from the cobble that lined the beach project area, a cleanup not just for Earth Day, he said, but something the San Clemente resident does every day.
He had watched the project when it first kicked off earlier this year, calling it a “complex” undertaking.
“We need the sand up here,” he said. “If they can get it up there and keep it on the beach – that’s the trick, I think. Hopefully, we won’t have any big storms that will wash it away. It’s a lot of area to fill … hopefully it works.”
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