An additional $2.27 million has been obtained in the federal budget to finish an overdue U.S. Army Corps of Engineers study that could help restore sand to Oceanside beaches, said Rep. Mike Levin, D-San Juan Capistrano.
“The Corps has no more excuses,” Levin said Wednesday. “The money is there. We will hold their feet to the fire.”
The Corps of Engineers began the Oceanside Special Shoreline Study in 2016 with plans to complete it within three years, but the effort stalled in 2017 after the funding dried up. At the time, the Corps asked Oceanside to pitch in $1 million to complete the study, and the city didn’t have the money.
Levin previously helped secure $1.8 million from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law in 2022 to complete the remainder of the study. Despite that, it remains unfinished, partly because some of the initial work became outdated.
When finished, the Corps’ study will recommend a project to restore Oceanside beaches, he said.
“They need to plan in parallel with the city’s Re:Beach project … and others that can pass muster with the Coastal Commission,” Levin said.
The study can lay the groundwork for multiple possible sand restoration projects.
Similar documents were completed for two separate 50-year federal replenishment projects that kicked off in 2024, one for Encinitas and Solana Beach, the other for San Clemente, the southernmost city in Orange County.
Lining up approvals, permits and money, especially for a U.S. Corps of Engineers project, can take 10 years or longer.
Oceanside’s City Council, frustrated by delays in the federal study, launched its own beach restoration effort several years ago. The city hosted an international design competition that led to the selection of the Re:Beach project, now in final design and engineering stages.
That plan calls for pumping about 900,000 cubic yards of sand from the ocean outside the surf line onto several badly eroded blocks south of the Oceanside Municipal Pier, also the construction of two headlands and an offshore artificial reef to help retain the added sand.
Earlier this year, the California Coastal Commission approved a grant of more than $1.8 million to cover costs of baseline studies for the Oceanside project.
Also in the works is another regional sand project led by the San Diego Association of Governments. It would be SANDAG’s third and largest so far, including for the first time the cities San Clemente and Dana Point in Orange County, also the coastal communities from Oceanside to Imperial Beach in San Diego County, most of which participated previously.
“We all need to be working collaboratively,” Levin said. “We have one amazing coast, and we all have to work together.”
The shoreline study will give authorities a better picture of what’s been known for decades, that the Camp Pendleton harbor built in 1942 interrupted the flow of sand to Oceanside.
Besides the military’s harbor, often called a boat basin, and the Oceanside harbor added in the 1960s, other manmade developments also affect the beaches. Shoreline homes, rock revetments and other structures built on the coast, as well as upstream development along the San Luis Rey and Santa Margarita rivers, cut off the natural supply of sand to all North County beaches.
“They (the Army Corps) are doing an analysis of the shoreline to determine how much sand would be on the beaches if Camp Pendleton were not built, versus what is there now,” said Kyle Krahel-Frolander, Levin’s deputy chief of staff.
Included in the federal study is an analysis of sand that could be available from the Santa Margarita River on Camp Pendleton and the San Luis Rey River in Oceanside, he said.
Another factor to be considered in the study is the ongoing San Luis Rey River flood-control project, which also awaits federal funding. Clearing brush and sediment from the river channel, and restoring its aging levees, would improve the flow of storm runoff, protecting nearby homes and sending a fresh, natural supply of sand from the river to the beach.
Replenishment projects that could be recommended in the completed study include the Re:Beach project, the SANDAG regional project, a long-term federal project, a combination of those or some other alternative.
“The Army Corps Shoreline Study, also called the Oceanside Mitigation Project, would be expected to yield consistent sand to Oceanside’s coastline for the next 50 years, with a frequency and amount that is still to be determined,” said Jayme Timberlake, Oceanside’s coastal zone administrator.
“The Re:Beach project is designed to specifically prolong these kind of sand nourishment efforts, regardless of whether the federal government, regional entity or local jurisdiction performs the sand placement,” Timberlake said in an email Thursday.
“Having a consistent sand nourishment project in Oceanside, like is being proposed by the Army Corps, would lessen the amount of sand that’s being recommended and cost shared through the SANDAG regional beach sand project,” she said.
“With the Army Corps stepping in to deliver sand to Oceanside, this lessens the overall cost of the next regional beach sand project, making it more alluring to state funding agencies and participating coastal cities that will have to cost share for the regional project,” Timberlake said.
Bob Ashton, president and CEO of the group Save Oceanside Sand, said in an email Thursday that the funding is “great news.”
“A big thanks to Congressman Levin for his continued strong support for getting sand back on our beaches,” Ashton said.
“Completing the study paves the way for a third potential project to help restore the beaches of Oceanside,” he said. “The subsequent project would be the least cost, environmentally acceptable alternative that mitigates erosion and restores the shoreline over the project horizon of 50 years.”