Orange County beaches are about to get a big influx of much-needed sand to create a buffer from the battering sea.
Major sand replenishment projects are prepping to get underway in coming days and weeks, with boats bringing in pipes near the San Clemente Pier this week, trucks gearing up along Newport Beach’s coastline and equipment being prepped for work at the Surfside-Sunset beaches on the north end of the county’s coast.
The sand projects have been years in the making – for San Clemente more than two decades – with severe erosion becoming rapidly apparent in recent years along stretches of beach throughout the county’s coastline. The shrinking beaches have alarmed residents, visitors and officials, who worry about not just the loss of recreation space, but for the sand buffer needed to keep infrastructure, roads and homes safe from the sea.
Construction for the Surfside-Sunset project is slated to begin the week of Nov. 27, according to Dena O’Dell, spokesperson for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which is also spearheading the project in San Clemente.
The contract was awarded to Manson Construction to dredge 1.1 million cubic yards of sediment, according to O’Dell. The project will spread sand over 4,500 feet of shoreline and widen the beach between 350 and 900 feet in width, according to Army Corps of Engineers documents.
The sand won’t just benefit the Surfside and Sunset communities – waves and currents are expected to spread sand south through Huntington Beach and to Newport Beach.
The work is expected to last through February.
Since 1964, more than 26 million cubic yards of sand has been placed along the shoreline from Anaheim Bay to the Newport Pier to offset impacts caused by construction of federal flood control channels and other projects that disrupted the natural flow of sand and river sediment. Every five to seven years the shoreline was supposed to be replenished with more sand, but due to lack of funding, the last…
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