SEAL BEACH : Council to Vote on River Sand for Shore

The City Council will have an emergency meeting Wednesday afternoon to approve the purchase of sand from a Santa Ana River excavation project to replenish badly eroded city beaches.

Timing is critical because of a Nov. 15 deadline imposed by federal officials on removing the sand.

Because of the threat to workers in the Santa Ana River during the rainy season, the Army Corps of Engineers will not allow any excavation work there after Nov. 15, Seal Beach City Manager Jerry Bankston said.

The sand was unearthed during a federal flood control project to cement the earthen sections of the Santa Ana River.

The regular City Council meeting scheduled for today was canceled because several council members are out of town. But council members will meet at 2 p.m. Wednesday to consider expenditures of up to $400,000 to purchase the sand and transport it to city beaches.

Bankston said he expected price negotiations to conclude by Wednesday’s meeting.

City officials are elated over the discovery of a pocket of sand in the Santa Ana River near the Anaheim Stadium.

As the winter storm season approaches, the city has been trying in vain to locate an affordable source of sand to dump on local beaches.

A mile-long section of beach between the Seal Beach Pier and the Naval Weapons Base has been losing seven inches of sand each year because of erosion.

Bankston said he was hoping to get between 70,000 and 100,000 cubic yards of sand. But because of the limited amount of time left to excavate the sand, he expects to recover between 45,000 and 60,000 cubic yards.

A sizable part of the expense is the cost of trucking the sand. One double-trailer truckload of sand amounts to only 15 cubic yards.