Seal Beach Seeks State Support for Sand Replenishment Project

The replenishment of sand on the city’s badly eroded beaches is on hold while city officials try to persuade state legislators to restore funding for beach erosion projects.

Mayor Marilyn Bruce Hastings met with legislators in Sacramento recently to encourage them to fund sand replenishment in the city’s private Surfside community. The Surfside beach has been designated by the state as a “feeder beach” because sand is washed from its shores to neighboring beaches.

If state funding were restored, the city could “piggy-back” on the project, Hastings said, making use of a state-provided dredger and only incurring the cost of sand.

“I think this is the only prospect we really have at this time,” Hastings said.

In 1983 and 1988, winter storms damaged the Seal Beach Pier and washed away much of the sand from local beaches. In some areas of the city, high tide comes within 75 feet of coastal homes.

Last November, the city purchased about 15,000 cubic yards of sand obtained from the Santa Ana River flood-control project near Anaheim Stadium. The sand was used to create a wall to protect coastal homes from winter storms.

“Had we not had even that much sand, we would have had some flooding in the streets,” Hastings said.

But the cost of transporting sand by truck from a remote location is prohibitive. A double-trailer truckload amounts to only 15 cubic yards of sand. At a cost of about $10 per cubic yard, Hastings said the city cannot afford to transport by truck the 240,000 cubic yards of sand needed to replenish local beaches.