Dredge Tries to Bring Back the Beach

An eight-foot-high black fountain of sand, water and muck gushed over a roped-off section of Redondo Beach, attracting a gaping crowd of Rollerbladers, joggers and bicyclists.

“Is it an oil spill? A sewage problem?” Karen Rellos asked as she and her two children pondered the roaring machines.

No, they were told the other day, the work is an ambitious--and some fear futile--$3.5-million project to extend an eroded section of Redondo Beach just south of the municipal pier by as much as 50 feet.

A dredge named Morris, a massive piece of offshore machinery, arrived last week accompanied by tugboats and work boats. Engineers then began pumping what eventually will be 200,000 cubic meters of sand from the ocean floor through a pipeline and into the waiting jaws of gigantic yellow tractors and bulldozers.

Morris took a rest Monday because of high winds and rough surf, but work is expected to resume this morning. Then, weather permitting, the beach-building is supposed to continue around the clock for at least the rest of this week, generating a terrific amount of noise and piercing the night sky with floodlights.

Project managers said Monday that the 600-yard-long frontage of beach, which had dwindled to a thin strip in recent years, could be restored by Friday. Whether it will remain permanently fixed is far from certain.

Before the work began, county officials worried that most of the expensively transported grains may flow right back into the ocean within weeks. But it’s worth the chance, they say.

After all, the wide beaches that rim Los Angeles County’s coastline and draw millions of tourists each year are not wholly natural. Parts were transformed from relatively narrow strips into havens for sun worshipers and volleyball players by infusions of sand displaced by the construction of the Hyperion sewage plant in the 1940s, the runways of Los Angeles International Airport in the 1950s and the dredging of Marina del Rey in the 1960s.

In the last decade, however, the easy and local supply of sand --and the huge amounts of money needed to get it spread out on the beach--dried up. Meanwhile, erosion continued to eat at beaches and the battering storms of El Nino took a big chunk in 1998.

Redondo is one of the most quickly disappearing beaches along Santa Monica Bay. Unlike Manhattan Beach and Hermosa Beach to the north, Redondo always has had trouble holding on to its sand because of giant underwater Redondo Canyon, which lies just offshore. When waves pull sand off Redondo, it doesn’t swish around in the water and wash up somewhere else as it does many other places in the bay. Instead, it falls into the canyon.

“Ten years ago, the beach was three times as big as it is now,” said Javier Bello, who often bikes past the beach.

The Army Corps of Engineers and the Los Angeles County Department of Beaches and Harbors wanted to reverse the trend. When they learned that a federal project to dredge Marina del Rey harbor would result in a lot of free sand, they jumped on the idea. Barges brought sand from the marina harbor and dumped it off the Redondo shore over recent months for Morris to pick up.

County officials wish there was more such sand to help other area beaches, said Dean Smith, executive assistant for the Department of Beaches and Harbors.

“Beaches are California’s biggest economic and environmental resource,” said Steve Aceti, executive director of the California Coastal Coalition, a group of public and private entities that lobbies for funds to replenish beaches.

A state Department of Boating and Waterways study shows that tourists spent $14 billion at the state’s beaches in 1998. The study estimated that the beaches generate $1 billion in state taxes and are responsible for 3% of the state’s total economic activity.

In the last two years, beach advocates have pushed harder for funding, and dreamed up a myriad of projects. Those include such ideas as trucking sand from the desert, tearing down a dam so that silt--sand in the making--can flow down Malibu Creek onto beaches, and constructing experimental underwater reefs to keep the sand from flowing back to sea.

But getting money to make these dreams reality has been difficult. Last year, the Legislature passed the California Public Beach Restoration Act (AB 64), which, after much cutting, provided only $500,000, just enough to study erosion issues in the state. Last month, Assemblywoman Patricia Bates (R-Laguna Niguel) introduced a bill that would set aside $35 million to improve beaches. The Legislature has yet to vote on the measure (AB 2748), and without it, the governor’s proposed budget for next year contains only $264,000 for beaches.

So right now, Morris is the big show in Southern California.

As the dredge pumps black, silty, watery sand off the ocean floor, bulldozers frantically build temporary berms to hold all the new sand on the beach and allow the water it contains to drain back into the ocean. After the sand dries out, the berms will be flattened.

The federal government footed the bill for the original $5.6-million dredging at Marina del Rey. The county is paying the $3.5 million for the Redondo work, although officials add that the county will not have to pay the contractor, Manson Construction of Long Beach, if the project fails.

“But they’re going to get paid,” Smith said. “The project is working. You can see how beautiful and clean the sand is.”

In 1969, the Army Corps of Engineers dredged 1.4 million cubic yards of sand just offshore from Redondo, dumped it on the beach, and then watched with dismay as much of it flowed right into the canyon shortly afterward. So in 1970, the corps built the Topaz groin, a jetty-like structure that keeps sand in place. But the groin stops about 600 yards south of the pier. Unprotected, the area between the groin and the pier has dwindled.

From his penthouse overlooking the hubbub, Chuck Botsch, 87, said he has faith the project will work.

The former lifeguard, who has been fishing, snorkeling, bodysurfing and spearfishing in the waters off Redondo for more than 75 years, was one of the main advocates of beach rebuilding.

“I was very concerned about the loss of sand,” said Botsch. So he began lobbying Redondo Beach City Councilman Gerard Bisagnano to do something about it.

At first, Bisagnano said, he was skeptical. But Botsch was persistent, so Bisagnano looked into the matter and found, to his surprise, that his constituent was right.

The two got in touch with environmentalists, activists and elected officials such as U.S. Rep. Steve Kuykendall (R-Rancho Palos Verdes) who secured federal funding for the dredging project at Marina del Rey, and Supervisor Don Knabe, who pushed for county money to bring Morris to town.

Bisagnano said he is exhilarated by the clamor. “There’s tugs and barges and cranes. It’s incredible,” he said. “It’s a big operation for Redondo Beach.”

By the sand, Rellos and her two children agreed. “Wow,” Rellos said. “It’s great.”

Standing beside her, Craig Bise, also of Redondo Beach, nodded. “I’ve been watching this all morning,” he said. “It’s like watching our tax dollars at work.”