The Nitty-Gritty : Seal Beach Will Scoop Sand From Quarry to Bolster Its Storm-Depleted Coastline

Playing Mother Nature is complicated business.

In the case of Seal Beach, it will take nearly three months, 50 trips by 20 railroad cars and thousands of deliveries by earthmovers to bring more than 100,000 tons of sand to a coastline that nature keeps trying to reclaim.

By the end of this week, the first load from Holiday Rock Quarry near Palmdale is expected to be spread on the eroded beachfront, city officials said Monday. Trains loaded with tons of sand will roll onto the Seal Beach Naval Weapons Station, where crews will be standing by to unload the cargo and truck it onto the city’s shrinking beach.

“This has been rather complicated,” said Steve Badum, the city’s director of public works. “We’ve had to deal with the Navy, Union Pacific, our contractors, the Coastal Commission and the Army Corps of Engineers.”

City officials pressed for approval of their sand transportation plan last month after high tides and heavy rains flooded several beachfront homes. The California Coastal Commission, spurred by the emergency, approved the project late last month.

Badum said the project is the first in which sand is being brought from a quarry to shore up a Southern California beach. About 2,000 tons of granules will arrive at the base in 20 rail cars. It will take 50 trips and cost $1.1 million to bring the 115,000 tons of sand to the beach, officials said.

In years past, the city has fortified the shore by dredging sand from the ocean floor. But the fine grains have been washed away at a rate of about 7,500 tons a year by winter rains and high tides.

Chris Webb, a coastal scientist with city consultant Moffatt & Nichol Engineers of Long Beach, said the heavier-grain sand from the quarry is expected to stay on the beach longer.

In preparation for the first shipment, crews went to work repairing a little-used strip of railroad tracks on the base, south of Pacific Coast Highway. Meanwhile, city officials completed negotiations with the sand supplier and work crews.

Badum said the first loads will go to where sand is needed most: to bolster the 8-foot berm hastily built during last month’s rains, and to build up the beach at its narrowest point near 11th Street.

Officials anticipate that the project will be complete by mid-January, ahead of the heaviest rains expected from El Nino.

“We’re emulating Mother Nature,” Badum said. “We’re taking sand from inland and taking it out to the ocean where it belongs.”

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Shore Leave

By the end of the week, sand from near Palmdale will begin arriving at Seal Beach Naval Weapons Station. From there, it will be moved to the city’s eroded beachfront, where workers will replace what storm waves have worn away. The plan: 1. Fill in thinnest part of beach

2. Rebuild berm

3. Fill in remaining shoreline

Needed for the Job

* 115,000 tons of sand

* 1,000 rail-car trips to move it from Palmdale to Seal Beach

* 10,000 dump-truck round-trips to deliver it to the beach

Source: City of Seal Beach; Researched by CATHY WERBLIN / For The Times