Residents and visitors expect beautiful sandy beaches in Oceanside and are dismayed when their expectations are not met. So, where’s the sand? The City of Oceanside is dependent on the Federal Government’s Army Corps of Engineers (Corps) for all of its beach nourishment efforts.
Lack of Harbor dredging this year:
Each year, the Corps dredges the mouth of the Oceanside Harbor to ensure safe navigation for boaters. The Corps contracts with a private dredging company to clear out the mouth of the harbor, which serves as the entrance to both Camp Pendleton’s harbor and Oceanside’s Municipal Harbor. The sand dredged is pumped onto Oceanside beaches. The City of Oceanside adds hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to take advantage of the opportunity to replenish beaches, sometimes extending the dredging operation beyond what is needed to clear the harbor entrance in order to obtain additional sand.
Unfortunately, this year, the Corps announced it would delay its annual maintenance dredging of Oceanside Harbor, typically expected to begin in the spring. The water quality certification used in previous dredging operations expired and a new permit was not obtained by the Corps in time to conduct dredging in May. The Corps has been monitoring the Harbor entrance channel depths to determine if dredging will be necessary in the fall, or if it can wait until Spring 2019. The City has requested that the Corps dredge (and place sand on the beach) both in Fall 2018 and Spring 2019.
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