South OC Has A New(ish) Beach. Here's How They Saved The Sand

Jentry Schippel and her 2-year-old daughter Brinlee stood at the southern end of Doheny State Beach on a recent morning, tossing rocks into the waves. For Brinlee, wiggling her toes in the sand here was a bit of a novelty — this narrow stretch of beach in Dana Point hasn't had much of the fluffy stuff in recent years.

The beach — like many in Southern California — is trapped between the sometimes pounding waves of the Pacific and the asphalt of the Pacific Coast Highway, with little incoming sand to replace what the sea takes back. That makes this part of the coast especially vulnerable to erosion which, while natural, threatens coastal homes, infrastructure and the region's beach-dependent tourism industry. Climate change is making some of these erosive forces worse.

But thanks to last winter's epic precipitation, and an unusually smooth collaboration among local and coastal authorities, this beach and neighboring Capistrano Beach Park have gotten a fresh load of sand.

Earlier this summer, Orange County Public Works began trucking the sand from the Santa Ana River flood channel near the 405 Freeway down to this stretch of coastline in Dana Point. The excess sand was washed down the river during the winter storms and had to be removed anyway, for example, to a landfill.

The eroded conditions at the south end of Doheny State Beach on June 15, 2023, at the start of the sand replenishment project.

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Courtesy of Scott Kibbey

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When the project finishes up this month, some 45,000 cubic yards of sand will have been spread over an approximately ⅓-mile-long stretch of coastline. Just a few months ago, the same stretch was covered in smooth rocks, known as cobbles, which naturally underlie many Southern California beaches.

The amount of sand trucked in on this project is enough to fill about five Olympic-sized swimming pools, said Scott Kibbey, who oversees Doheny State Beach and other South O.C. state beaches.

What's so great about sand?

Sandy beaches are a major draw for the tourism that helps power Southern California's economy. The south end of Doheny and neighboring Capistrano Beach Park are popular for their close proximity to parking, especially for families and people with mobility challenges.

Jentry Schippel and her 2-year-old daughter Brinlee enjoy a day at the southern end of Doheny State Beach, where the eroding sand is being shored up.

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Jill Replogle

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Kibbey said the new sand at Doheny will also "create habitat for a couple species that wouldn't have been able to thrive in this area before," the snowy plover and the California grunion.

Sand also protects the coast from erosion, which has become an increasing problem in South O.C. as sea level rises and storm surges become more powerful.

Over the past year, landslides in neighboring San Clemente destroyed part of the Casa Romantica cultural center, left homes teetering on coastal bluffs and forced the coastal rail line to shut down for months and undergo costly repairs.

Why this is a 'short-term fix'

Coastal authorities know a few swimming pools-worth of sand is no match for climate change. "We realize that this is kind of a short-term fix for a problem that we're going to be facing for a long period of time," Kibbey said.

Still, sand replenishment, or beach nourishment, as it's also known, is seen as a promising tool for keeping the ocean at bay and protecting coastal infrastructure.

Humans have long built and rebuilt beaches by trucking sand from riverbeds or dredging it from offshore spots and hauling it to shore. Naturally, beaches are replenished by shifting tides, crumbling coastal bluffs and sediment that gets washed down rivers to the ocean.

The erosion along this stretch of beach in Dana Point was so dramatic officials needed to take steps to shore it back up.

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Jill Replogle

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LAist

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But Southern California has lost many of those natural replenishment sources by constructing jetties, paving river channels, and building homes and infrastructure like the Pacific Coast Highway and coastal railroad, right where erosion naturally happens.

South OC's sand deficit

University of California, Irvine, engineering professor Brett Sanders says south Orange County, especially, now has a large sand deficit. "Our natural sand supplies have been significantly reduced," Sanders wrote in an email.

Sanders said the sand replenishment project in Dana Point is significant, in part, because it's the first such project along this stretch of the coast in decades.

In contrast, parts of the coastline in Seal Beach, Huntington Beach and Newport Beach have gotten fresh loads of sand periodically, as remediation for federal infrastructure in and around the Seal Beach Naval Weapons Station.

The Doheny project is also significant, Sanders said, "because local governments have taken responsibility and taken action."

The cost of sand

Sand replenishment is generally not cheap and many projects rely on federal leadership and funding. The federal government recently committed $15 million to an upcoming phase of the ongoing remediation project for beaches in the northern part of the county.

In south O.C., San Clemente will soon get part of its downtown beach replenished with federal help. The initial phase is expected to cost some $14 million and start this fall. But the city estimates the long-term cost of the project — 50 years of continual sand replenishment — at $256 million.

The cost of the Doheny project has been hard to pin down, in part because the entities involved — the county, California State Parks and the city of Dana Point — pitched in resources and staff time to make it happen. But estimates put the pricetag at approximately $113,000, excluding staff time.

Why it was 'unusually fast'

Susan Brodeur, a senior coastal engineer with O.C. Parks, said the county public works department had essentially donated the sand and the resources to haul it — at an estimated cost of $3.5 million. She called the project "a monumental achievement with all the collaboration involved."

The project also seemed to happen unusually fast — three to four months, Brodeur said. Some of the bigger beach nourishment projects, like in neighboring San Clemente, take years of planning and fundraising to get off the ground.

"Really it was more an opportunistic thing that happened," Brodeur said. She said the county had some pre-approvals in place, for things like the incoming sand composition, through a state program designed to allow local jurisdictions to do small replenishment projects quickly when the opportunity arises.

Brodeur said it's unclear whether the stars would align to do a similar project the next time there's sand available. "The transportation is the biggest issue," she said. "It's very expensive to transport that material here."

How long will it last?

Sanders, from UC Irvine, had been worried that waves and rain from Tropical Storm Hilary would wash away the new sand at Doheny — and from the Santa Ana River site providing the sand. It didn't.

Still, he said the beach would need continual sand replenishment to keep up with the ocean's eroding force. "We’ll also need a long-term plan for higher rates of sea level rise," Sanders said. That could mean moving some of the coastal infrastructure, like the PCH and the train tracks. "Some of the low-lying infrastructure will eventually need to be moved to ensure that we still have a beach," he said.