Oceanside chooses three teams to compete for controversial sand project

A jury of experts has selected three teams as finalists to design a system that will restore and retain sand on Oceanside’s eroding beaches.

Six teams, each with members of two to four design firms, submitted proposals for the city’s competition, Oceanside Coastal Zone Administrator Jayme Timberlake said this week. The chosen teams include people from a total of 15 consulting firms out of the 36 firms that the city solicited for proposals.

“We are thrilled with the interest and participation from global climate adaptation and coastal resilience experts and can’t wait to see what our finalists come up with as potential solutions over the coming months,” Timberlake said in a news release.

Oceanside initially got off on a bad foot with its sand retention proposal.

The City Council agreed in August 2021 to spend up to $1 million on plans and permits for a pilot project that included the construction of four rock groins, which are jetty-like structures to hold sand on the beach. Carlsbad and other coastal cities to the south went on record opposing the project, which they said would divert sand from their beaches.

Since then, Oceanside has taken a more inclusive approach. It created the competition for what it says will be an innovative and collaborative project, and recruited experts and representatives from other cities for an advisory panel and a jury to judge the entries. It also has played down the possibility of building structures on the beach and said that any solution chosen must not harm its down-coast neighbors.

The three teams selected for the competition will work with Oceanside’s jury and advisory committee beginning with a public meeting Aug. 29 in the council chambers at Oceanside City Hall. A final proposal is expected to be presented to the City Council for approval early next year.

“We have three public workshops planned for the end of summer and fall,” Timberlake said. “We are expecting and encouraging those who love the coast of Oceanside to come join the process of determining the future of our beaches.”

The chosen teams are: SCAPE Landscape Architecture with the Dredge Research Collaborative; Deltares with Deltares USA and MVRDV; and International Coast Management.

SCAPE is a design firm based in New York City with offices in New Orleans and San Francisco. Deltares is a Dutch nonprofit, and International Coast Management is an Australia-based firm that has completed projects for SeaWorld, the Nature Conservancy and others.

A brief summary of each of their initial proposals is posted on a website created for the competition at rebeach.org.

Each of the finalists will develop conceptual plans and strategies for sand retention infrastructures, city officials said.

“This is far more than just a technical solve,” said Sam Carter of Resilient Cities Catalyst, one of Oceanside’s consultants for the project. “By including the points of industry leaders from different parts of the globe, these competitors are taking part in a big picture approach that will set our beaches up to evolve with the changing climate.”

San Diego County’s coastal cities have been looking for ways to supplement their sand for years. Many scoop sediment from lagoons, rivers and nearby construction projects.

Oceanside has been piping sand onto its northern beaches from the annual spring dredging of its harbor by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers since the harbor was created in the 1960s. But in recent years the material from the harbor, like most other sources of supplemental sand, has been insufficient to keep pace with erosion.

SANDAG has begun initial planning for a third regional replenishment project like the ones the planning agency completed in 2001 and 2012. That effort is just beginning, and so far has no funding for construction, which has been estimated at $37 million.

The SANDAG projects take sand from offshore deposits. The offshore material is considered superior because the grains are larger and heavier than the silt-like sediment that accumulates in the harbor and lagoons, and so it lasts longer on the beaches.

Meanwhile, a sand project in the works more than 20 years is fully funded and about to begin in Solana Beach and Encinitas.

Those two cities recently signed an agreement with the Army Corps of Engineers to begin placing sand on their beaches this fall. Dredged from offshore deposits, the sand will be pumped on average every five years in Encinitas and every 10 years in Solana Beach for the next 50 years.