SEAL BEACH : Disappearing Sand Is Focus of Study

Federal officials have enlisted the help of Seal Beach lifeguards in their efforts to solve the case of the vanishing beach.

Their mission is to figure out why sand has been slowly disappearing during the past 20 years from prime coastland near the Seal Beach Pier. If left unchecked, the erosion could imperil ocean-side homes.

Enter the Army Corps of Engineers, which this year began a comprehensive study of Orange County’s coast in conjunction with city, county and state agencies. The study will look at sand erosion and tide patterns from San Clemente to Seal Beach. “This study will benefit us in the long term,” Seal Beach City Manager Jerry L. Bankston said. “It will give us information we don’t presently have.”

As part of the research, Seal Beach lifeguards will drop dye into the ocean on a daily basis in hopes of better understanding how the ocean flows. The lifeguards will measure how long the dye takes to come ashore and where it lands. They will check at high and low tides and record the information in daily logs, Bankston said.

The Army Corps of Engineers plans to measure the height of waves in an attempt to discover where the sand goes after it leaves Seal Beach.

The project is part of a federal effort to assess the entire California coast. San Diego County was the subject of a study two years ago.

Several local beach cities are providing money and staffing for the Orange County effort.

Seal Beach officials said the corps’ work will supplement the city’s longstanding examination of beach erosion. But they stressed that the city still needs to find a way to replenish lost sand.

“We need this sand right away,” said Councilwoman Marilyn Bruce Hastings. “It’s critical that we find a way to get it.”

Along those lines, Seal Beach is working with the Navy to see if the city can buy sand that the military regularly dredges from Anaheim Bay near the Seal Beach Naval Weapons Station.

City officials hope to determine if the dredged sand is suitable for use on the beach. And if it is, Bankston said, pumping sand from Anaheim Bay would be cheaper than buying it from a gravel yard.