An offshore structure built from rocks with the added perk of creating a new surf spot. Underwater speed bumps set parallel to shore to slow down waves. Living shorelines made of dunes and native plants to keep sand grains in place.
A wave of innovative ideas are floating around San Clemente as the beach town seeks solutions for its disappearing beaches, efforts planners hope could salvage one of the coastal town’s most valuable resources: the beach.
Several solutions are proposed in a newly released, 255-page study that looks at the history of why local beaches are sand-starved, which are the most critically in need and ideas for how to slow erosion to keep the shoreline healthy.
Also, the city brought in sand from British Columbia last week to see how it would fare on San Clemente’s beaches. The sand is darker in color than what currently exists, but is readily available for replenishing the shrinking shore.
Mixing sands
The city placed 10 cubic yards of sand from Orcas Island, British Columbia, on the beach just north of the pier on Friday, June 13, as a test case to see how the darker grains will blend with existing sand.
“The sand is definitely darker. But when we place the sand, we don’t usually place it on the back of the beach, we place it closer to the water line so that it does mix right away,” said Leslea Meyerhoff, the city’s coastal administrator.
The city posted a sign explaining the test sample sand, with hopes of getting community feedback about the grains.
Color is a consideration, Meyerhoff said, but it’s secondary to finding just the right grain size, ensuring the sand is clean material and, maybe the toughest criteria, that the source has a supply available to be placed on the shore quickly.
Meyerhoff said she hopes the sand being tested from the Vulcan Quarry on the Orcas Island could be a quicker solution than traditional dredging offshore, which is dependent on permitting timelines and dredger availability.
There is about 50,000 cubic yards of sand currently stockpiled at the ports of Long Beach and San Diego, with more that could be shipped down to San Clemente for about the same cost as it would be to dredge from an offshore site, she said.
“It is clean of any chemical contaminants, and it is available right now,” she said. “We’re doing some analysis on it, seeing community reaction. We’re not aware of any other sand that is available right now for placement on the beach.”
Sand from various locations can often be different colors — sand recently dredged from off Surfside in Seal Beach showed up with an orange tint, but while odd at first glance before it blended in, the color variations ended up helping planners see where wave action moved the grains along the shoreline in the following months.
Meyerhoff said she took a small sample of the Orcas Island sand and mixed it in with the current beach grains. Though darker, it blended well, she said.
Securing the sand
A rough estimate is the city needs between 5 million and 7 million cubic yards of sand to fully restore its shoreline from north to south, an effort that may take a decade or longer, depending on funding availability, according to a newly released report the city commissioned.
The “Nature-Based Adaptation Project Feasibility Study,” a years-long effort by city consultant Moffatt & Nichol, funded through a Coastal Commission grant, is open for public comment through July 13. A final draft will be submitted to the state agency later this year, Meyerhoff said.
Last year, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers placed 200,000 cubic yards of sand near the pier, an effort that is expected to be repeated every five or six years through 2074, though each attempt is subject to federal funding approval.
The city also placed about 37,000 cubic yards of sand at North Beach last year and the Orange County Transportation Authority is expected to replenish an estimated 540,000 cubic yards of sand in its effort to protect the vulnerable coastal rail line. A regional effort and collaboration with San Diego coastal cities could bring in even more sand supply to San Clemente.
The purpose of the newly released study is to “identify companion strategies” for keeping the sand on the beaches following replenishment projects, Meyerhoff said.
Offshore structures such as barbell-shaped reefs on the north and south ends of the beach town and smaller “speed bumps” in areas such as Capistrano Beach, could be used to keep added sand in place.
“The idea there is that it will slow down the wave energy, so that when the waves hit the beach, they’re gentler and they don’t scour the sand away,” said Meyerhoff.
The next phase would be to pick a location — earlier studies identified critical erosion hot spots based on the monitoring results — and structure types and do numerical modeling, then more design work, Meyerhoff said. Environmental studies would look at how the sand would move, how long it would be retained, and how it would improve the performance of beach nourishment projects.
The consultant team recommends that the first effort be in North Beach, where several development projects are underway and a nearby train station would make for a prime location for a larger beach that could benefit tourism and recreation.
A reef there would be located about 900 feet offshore, and be built in a barbell shape about 1,300 feet long and 350 feet wide at the center and 700 feet wide at the ends. It would be placed in about 10 feet to 20 feet of water.
The shape of the barbell structure could, in theory, create surfable waves on each side.
How to pay for projects
The effort to build such a structure and add more sand to the beach wouldn’t be cheap.
The estimated price tag for just a North Beach offshore reef and beach nourishment project, along with environmental studies and permitting, is upward $60 million, though that figure could be reduced as more is known about the process, said Meyerhoff.
“Funding is essential. We cannot build any of these projects if we don’t have the funding,” Meyerhoff said, noting the city has several grant applications in the works, but even those come with a 50-50 cost sharing the city would have to fund. The US Army Corps of Engineers project near the pier will also be a split cost-share effort, with the latest project’s price tag at about $25 million.
To generate a local source of funding, advocacy group Save Our Beaches San Clemente is gearing up for another push for a local sales tax initiative that could fund such ventures, this time adding fire protection funding into the proposal to sway more voters.
“San Clemente isn’t just a city — it’s a coastal community rooted in beach culture, family traditions, and a love for our natural environment,” group leaders said in an email update about the effort. “Growing threats are putting our way of life at risk.”
In November, Measure BB, which would have added a half-cent local sales tax garnered 64.62% of the vote, falling shy of the 66.6% needed to pass.
The latest petition proposes a 1% local sales tax increase so the city can have a dedicated funding source for two legally restricted funds: one for beach restoration and erosion control, and one for wildfire prevention and fire protection.
Organizers need 7,000 signatures from San Clemente registered voters on a petition by the end of 2025 to put the initiative on a ballot. The way it is proposed this time, it would need just a simple majority to pass.
The nature-based study can be viewed at san-clemente.org. The Orcas Island sand sample can be found near the lifeguard headquarters north of the pier.