Hopes Are High for Sand Saver Despite Delays : Oceanside Betting It Will Solve Bare-Beach Problem

It’s not so easy to build a better vacuum cleaner. But that is exactly what they’re trying to do in Oceanside these days.

This, however, is no Hoover chasing after dust balls in the corner of the carpet. It is a revolutionary, federally funded, $5.5-million system of pipes and pumps designed to suck up sand from the municipal harbor’s silt-choked entrance channel and dump it on the eroding beaches to the south.

Though the idea looks inviting on paper, the task of actually making everything function effectively in the savage ocean environment has proven to be a challenge. The effort to build the contraption, dubbed the sand bypass system, has been bedeviled by operational glitches and logistical snafus that have delayed the start-up date by more than a year.

Nonetheless, the project’s designers at the Army Corps of Engineers remain bullish. They say the system should be up and running by the end of the month. If all goes according to plan, the bypass could begin normal operations soon thereafter.

Glitches Expected

“I wouldn’t have minded seeing the system go together without a hitch, but that’s not life,” said Spence Pickett, project engineer for the Oceanside job. “We’re doing something that has never been tried on this scale anywhere. It’s an experiment. I don’t think it’s the norm that an experimental system goes together perfectly the first time, and this one is no exception.”

Oceanside officials, who lobbied hard in Washington during the early 1980s to win funding approval for the project, are understandably eager to see the system begin pumping sand onto area beaches. But they figure a good thing is worth waiting for.

“We’re not real delighted with the delay, but we’d rather see it working right before it’s put up,” Mayor Larry Bagley said. “The main thing is, we think it’s going to be one heck of a good system when it gets going. That’s why we’re not too upset with the delay.”

Beaches in the city have experienced erosion problems for years.

In 1942, at the height of the war effort, the military built a boat basin on the Camp Pendleton Marine Corps base just north of the city. In the years that followed, the civilians living in the seaside town noticed the sand on their beloved beachfront was disappearing.

It didn’t take long to find the culprit. As many coastal experts saw it, the rock breakwater, which was built to protect the boat basin, had been blocking the natural flow of sand along the coast. When the breakwater was lengthened in the early 1960s to shield the newly created Oceanside harbor from the surf, the erosion worsened.

Instead of landing on the beaches, sand accumulates in the harbor mouth, creating reefs and shoals that pose a danger for the pleasure boaters who use the entrance channel. To cure that problem, the mouth is dredged about every other year at a cost of $2.5 million, usually paid by the federal government.

The sand bypass should change all that. If all goes according to plan, Oceanside officials hope the bypass system will pump up to 400,000 cubic yards of sand each year onto the beach. The system’s ability to provide a day-by-day influx of sand on area beaches should also prove more effective than massive efforts to dump millions of cubic yards at one time, they say.

Project designers hope the bypass will be more cost effective than dredging. And if the system is deemed to be an equitable approach to keeping the harbor mouth clean, the sand bypass principle could be employed at other ports up and down the coastline.

Analyzing how effective the bypass is will require a five-year monitoring program. The tests will be used not only to determine how efficiently the bypass is running, but to estimate how much sand is being removed from the harbor and how much sticks on Oceanside’s beaches.

Aside from helping Oceanside, the bypass could prove a boon for communities further down the San Diego County coast. Because of the natural drift of sand to the south, beaches as far as Del Mar could benefit from the anticipated effect of the bypass system.

Others Impatient

Yet officials in some communities down the coast have grown impatient. After a tour of the Oceanside bypass a week ago, Carlsbad Councilwoman Ann Kulchin criticized the project for the long delays.

Kulchin and other Carlsbad officials say they now plan to go to Washington in February to talk with federal officials about beach erosion solutions geared specifically to their community, which shares many of Oceanside’s shoreline dilemmas.

“I thought the sand bypass system was further along than it was,” Kulchin said. “We can’t wait for it. Our beach is bare. There’s no nourishment. If we have another bad storm, it’s going to be a tough situation.”

Theoretically speaking, the bypass is a relatively simple batch of machinery.

The key feature is the jet pump, an arch-shaped length of two-foot diameter pipe about as long as two full-sized cars. Water is forced through the pipe, creating a suction that vacuums sand from the ocean bottom through a six-inch nozzle near the end of the gizmo.

In the coming weeks, officials expect to place a single jet pump on the northern side of the harbor breakwater, where it can capture sand blocked by the rock structure. Two more pumps will be placed in the harbor entrance, but future phases call for installation of up to 10 extra jet pumps in that area as needed.

Positioning of Barge

To help handle the pumping chores, a barge outfitted with mechanical gear is connected to the jet pumps. During summer months, when waves tend to push the sand to the north and into the harbor mouth, the barge will be stationed at the entrance to the channel, operating the jet pumps there. In the winter, when sand moves south and piles up against the northern side of the breakwater, the barge will be moved to that side of the harbor.

The barge, currently stationed near the north breakwater, rarely rests in the ocean. Eager to ensure that the platform does not become a victim of the waves, the engineers have installed a winch system that hooks onto thick steel pilings and hoists the 275-ton barge 10 feet above the sea.

An electrical-powered booster pump is housed in a boxlike building on land near the south end of the harbor. Capable of moving up to 5,700 gallons a minute, the booster pump will help send a mix of sand and water cascading down a pipe to two discharge points in the surf off 7th and Tyson streets.

While the design of the system is relatively straightforward, construction has been a headache.

It was originally slated for completion in summer, 1986. Work was delayed during much of that year, however, because of logistical constraints.

Repairs were being made on the harbor’s rock jetty and the semi-annual dredging operation was under way in the entrance channel, limiting the ability of Maecon Inc., the Irvine-based firm building the bypass, to deploy its workers on the job.

New Target Date Passed

A new target date of summer, 1987, was set, but that deadline quickly came and went.

First the system designed to lift the barge out of the water began acting up. In July, the first attempt was made.

After much grunting and groaning, it became obvious that a modified pulley system and more powerful engine would be needed. By September, those problems were rectified and the huge platform was hoisted above the waves.

No sooner was that tackled than another snag cropped up: The machinery aboard the barge that drives the jet pumps was improperly aligned. After grappling with that glitch for several weeks, engineers felt they had it licked.

During a key test in late November, however, the alignment headache reared up again. This time, an air seal on a clutch broke and a drive shaft was damaged. The half-ton clutch and other parts had to be removed by crane and returned to a machine shop in Illinois to be repaired, adding yet another delay.

In the meantime, Maecon is being hit by the Army Corps of Engineers with fines of $300 a day because the project is behind schedule. Officials with the firm are appealing the assessments.

“We know it’s behind schedule and we know there are some flaws, but that’s due to the experimental nature of this system,” said Steve Crane, the bypass project manager for Maecon. “The important thing is that the Corps of Engineers and Maecon are really trying to pull together to get this done.”

Even when the bypass is brought up to speed, proof of the system’s effectiveness will only come with time. Numerous questions remain unresolved. Will the pumps clog? How much maintenance will be required? Just how much sand will it pick up?

“The success of the project is ultimately going to be measured in how much it costs us to pump sand,” said Pickett of the Corps of Engineers. “It’s just hard to say, right now, what that’s going to be.”