Oceanside Races to Save Its Diminishing Beaches

When you stick your toes in the sand in Oceanside, you might not realize how costly that stretch of sand is. Each spring, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers spends millions to dredge sand from the Oceanside Harbor and deposit it on Oceanside’s beaches. And the sand is significant — the city’s identity and economy are deeply tied to its public beaches. 

Every year, sand is pumped onto the beaches. And every year, all that sand and more is swept back into the ocean, despite the city’s efforts to replenish and retain it. Now only about a third of Oceanside’s 3.7 miles of coastline has enough sand to be enjoyed. And the erosion problem faces beaches all the way up and down the coast — by the end of the century, the U.S. Geological Survey predicts that between 24 and 75% of California’s beaches will become completely eroded without any kind of intervention. 

Oceanside is particularly susceptible to erosion — south of Harbor Beach, which has a jetty to keep the San Luis Rey River mouth open, there are no retention features and no natural reefs to attenuate waves until Tamarack Beach in Carlsbad. “We can't just keep putting sand on the beach and then watch it wash off the shoreline, which it does in Oceanside more than anywhere else,” says Jayme Timberlake, who was hired by the City of Oceanside as its first Coastal Zone Administrator in 2022. “We needed to think about retention.”

So Jayme and Oceanside came up with a new approach: They launched RE:BEACH Oceanside, an international design competition to seek out feasible solutions to protect beaches from long-term erosion. “We wanted to find a new tool to use, and we put it out there to the world to figure out what kinds of other things could we do?” she says. “Just like any kind of invention, [RE:BEACH] came from a real demand for something different than what has been done in the past.” 

The competition drew interest from 36 design firms around the globe, and the submissions were narrowed down to three finalists. The winning design, which was unanimously approved by the City Council in January using input from the community, was the Living Speed Bumps concept from the Australian firm International Coastal Management. The idea, which has already been implemented on Australia’s Gold Coast, would entail constructing two headlands and an offshore artificial reef to collect sand somewhere south of the Oceanside Pier, where the beaches have the most eroded conditions. 

Now, Jayme and the team are working on determining the actual site for the pilot project by creating a data-driven, objective mechanism for selecting a location. She expects the site to be determined this fall or early winter. They’ll then launch into the “nitty gritty design details,” environmental compliance and permitting, which will take one to one-and-a-half years. She expects to be “shovel ready” by 2026, but funding will determine whether the construction starts at that time. Since Day 1, Oceanside has been looking into every option for securing project funding, including state and federal agencies, grants, local taxes, and philanthropic interest. 

“We really do want to stay on schedule,” Jayme says, “because we see that this could be an example — a case study — for many different places.” 

While Oceanside might be the first in the county to initiate a beach nourishment program this aggressive and innovative, the city is more than willing to share their knowledge with the neighboring beach communities. Jayme is involved in other coastal communities’ sand replenishment programs, including Carlsbad and San Clemente. 

Despite the disparity in wealth between Oceanside — known as more accessible to blue-collar, middle-class, and military families — and ritzier communities to the south, like Carlsbad and Del Mar, Jayme wants to make sure beaches up and down the coast stay accessible to all. “In reality, people are coming from very far, and everyone’s enjoying the beach, all different economic levels, not just the people who live right there,” she says, noting that she sees this equal access as an opportunity to possibly secure more funding as well, perhaps even designating the beaches as official Cool Zones, for people to seek relief during heat waves.

San Diego coastal towns aren’t left to battle erosion on their own — San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG) has been leading regional beach restoration efforts for decades. On multiple major projects, SANDAG has partnered with local agencies, federal agencies, nonprofits, and local governments to dredge and pump sand onto the region’s most eroded beaches. For example, in 2021, SANDAG worked with Caltrans, the City of Encinitas and California State Parks to pump 63,000 cubic yards of dredged sand from San Elijo Lagoon onto Cardiff State Beach. SANDAG has also received a grant to develop and implement an ongoing Coastal Regional Sediment Management Plan, and local cities, including Oceanside, are part of the task force. 

Fighting to maintain San Diego’s beaches has become a collective effort over the years, and Oceanside’s commitment to beach nourishment — by creating a dedicated position and paying for the design competition on its own — will hopefully benefit the entire region. “I think it’s going to create this new coastal management tool and give the region a case study to build from,” Jayme says. 

She’s also hopeful that this project will allow future generations to enjoy the beaches. “If we can keep the beaches with our pilot project for the next 30 years, that’s three generations of people who get to experience the beach and still have that place recognition, and that connection to the ocean,” she says. “And we need people to continue to connect with the ocean, because it actually builds stewardship, it builds an interest, and it builds on science. And we need all those — we need that kind of inspiration.”