Dates set for sand replenishment project for Orange County beaches

Dates have been set for what will be the 13th project by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to supplement the eroding coastline of Orange County.

According to an announcement Monday from Newport Beach officials, work to dredge roughly 1.2 million cubic yards of sand off the coast of Surfside and Sunset beaches will begin on Nov. 27. That sand will be deposited along a stretch of beach south of the Naval Weapons Station Seal Beach and is then expected by way of natural currents to move south to Huntington, Bolsa Chica and Newport Beach.

Newport Beach will be receiving immediate benefits as city officials confirmed the Corps will be using 100,000 cubic yards of accumulated sand from the far West Newport area to replenish the beaches between 52nd and 36th streets.

Temporary fencing will be put up to delineate where the work trucks will be in operation for roughly four to six weeks.

The project has been a long time coming, according to Surfside Storm Water Protection District president John Kriss, and not for the reasons people may have initially thought.

Discussions replenishing the sand on Orange County’s coastline started in the 1940s when officials realized the construction of breakwaters and jetties for harbors and military bases was reducing the amount of sediment that would naturally be transported down to the beaches through river deposits. The San Gabriel to Newport Bay Beach Renourishment Project began in 1964. About 1.8 million cubic yards of sand was supposed to be deposited every five years.

“Since it was a man-made problem that was caused by the Army, which did the projects on behalf of the state of California to harness the river and build the harbors, the only way these beaches could be replenished was by man doing it,” Kriss said in a recent interview.

But, in 2000, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers declared it would no longer fund further stages to replenish the beaches, leaving it in the hands of cities.

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About 1.1 million cubic yards of sand is expected to be replaced with the coming Surfside-Sunset project, but Kriss said it’s too little to be enthusiastic about.

The new deposit does not fully replace the net loss of sand that occurred between 2009 to 2023, according to Kriss. He noted that when advocates first reached out to Rep. Michelle Steel seeking funding, their estimates for the project undershot actual costs in 2023.

In 2022 Steel secured $15.5 million in federal funding for the work. Another $7.5 million comes from state, local cities and agencies, according to Newport Beach officials.

“We’re now going to get two-thirds of a sand replenishment project and, during that time, the beaches from Surfside to Newport Beach have been eroding,” Kriss said. “For a long time, no one really noticed it.”

Kriss pointed to flooding on Pacific Coast Highway in January of this year caused by tidal surges and high surf conditions.

Cities like San Clemente and Dana Point have already begun to see the impacts of narrowing beaches. These conditions were the more exacerbated with the storms in January.

“This story is not about global warming. These beaches have been eroding since the 1930s. If we have a storm, there’s going to be major serious damage,” Kriss said. “They’re not going to put back what’s already been lost, but they’ll blame it on global warming because that’s the easy way out.”