Surfrider to Monitor Sand Fill Projects on San Diego County Beaches

San Diego Chapter to Monitor Beaches Impacted to Ensure Surfing Integrity

The Surfrider Foundation will be monitoring the upcoming large-scale beach nourishment project, called Regional Beach Sand Project II, with a video-monitoring program to assess how sand deposits change the surf zones in coastal areas along the San Diego County shoreline.

A lot of sand will be pumped from the ocean floor onto beaches from the South Bay to North County.   According to KPBS, the dredging vessel that will undertake the job is on its way to San Diego and should arrive next weekend.  This $28 million project will spread more than a million cubic yards of sand on eight San Diego beaches.  More from KPBS:

According to SANDAG, the sand replenishment project will move on to Oceanside in early October, followed by Moonlight Beach and Cardiff State Beach in Encinitas and near the Batiquitos Lagoon in Carlsbad. In November, the replenishment will take place in Solana Beach and other areas along the shore in Carlsbad.

 Equipment has been moved to Imperial Beach over the last couple of days to prepare for the project, resulting in restricted vehicle access to Descanso Avenue and Seacoast Drive, SANDAG reported. About half the spots in the Descanso Avenue parking lot near the beach could be taken up by equipment until mid-October.

 On Wednesday, sand will start being pumped onto Imperial Beach near Cortez Avenue.

 The work will continue around the clock, seven days a week, unless interrupted by weather.

The monitoring to ensure surfing qualities near sand “receiver” sites are maintained, and to provide an assessment of the response of surf spots to the influx of new sand from RBSP II are the goals of the program.

Utilizing technology provided by CoastalCOMS, a company which specializes in video-based coastal monitoring, this program will use a video monitoring system to establish a baseline for surf quality at six San Diego County beaches near RBSP II beach fill locations. The beach monitoring system will also build a valuable video archive of daily observations of surf quality.

Prior to the Surfrider Foundation stepping in to oversee beach monitoring, no resources had been allotted to monitor and ensure the integrity of surfing conditions at sand “receiver” sites.

The sand replenishment program is necessitated because much of natural sand supply has been cut off by the armoring of bluffs, damming of rivers and creeks, and construction of large harbors in the region. The project, which will cost an estimated $28 million, will move nearly 1.4 million cubic yards of sand from beach quality deposits offshore at depths of 80 to 100 feet to above the water line at beaches from Imperial Beach to Oceanside.

The video monitoring system will be used to establish a baseline for surf quality at six San Diego County beaches near fill locations, and for creating an archive of daily observations of surf quality. Footage from the Surfrider project will be for study use only, and not available to the public.

Information on Surfrider’s Beach Preservation campaign, including a Beach Preservation Policy Statement, can be  found here.  For more on the San Diego County Chapter of the Surfrider Foundation, go here .