OXNARD : Dredging Near Harbor Will Help Beaches

More than 1 million cubic feet of sand will be scooped from the ocean floor north of Channel Islands Harbor and piped to two county beaches as part of a periodic project to offset erosion, officials said.

The dredge, pumping around the clock, will remove up to 2,000 cubic feet of sand an hour, spitting it out on Silver Strand Beach and areas south of Port Hueneme Beach, said Capt. Jack Peveler of the Channel Islands Harbor Police Department.

“It’s like a big water vacuum,” he said.

The Sand Bypass Project, expected to begin Wednesday and last until mid-March, will require boaters to radio harbor police before passing the 55-foot-wide, 300-foot-long dredge, Peveler said.

About 1.5 million cubic feet of sand will be removed from an area directly north of the harbor and the harbor’s main entrance area.

An additional 200,000 cubic feet will be removed from the entrance to Port Hueneme, he said.

Western Pacific Dredging, a subsidiary of an Oregon-based company, will do the project for the Army Corps of Engineers and the Navy, he said.

The equipment scoops the sand with a giant blade, sucks it up and pumps it to the beaches through pipes linked for more than a mile.

Bulldozers will block areas of the beach to recondition the sand.

“Until the sand settles, you could get stuck pretty bad,” Peveler said.