San Diego Union Tribune: After 26 years, a plan to bring Oceanside’s beaches back
Stand on the sand at Oceanside and you will see a wide, healthy beach, with room for families to relax and kids to run.
That sand arrived last month, pumped onto our shore by the Army Corps during the annual harbor dredge. It is good news, but it is also temporary. The ocean will pull much of it back, the way it does every year.
For 26 years, Oceanside has been asking the federal government for one thing: a real plan to bring back the sand our coastline keeps losing. As of this month, we finally have it.
Here is how we got here. In 1942, the federal government built the harbor at Camp Pendleton. It served our military then and it still does today. But from the day it went in, that harbor disrupted the natural flow of sand down our coast. Oceanside has paid the price ever since, with eroding beaches, higher storm risk, and a shoreline slipping away year after year. Washington acknowledged it owed Oceanside a fix back in 1953. And then, for decades, nothing happened.
When I got to Congress in 2019, the study meant to address the sand issue was dead. It was stalled with no path forward and no money behind it. So I went to work. I passed a provision into federal law requiring the Army Corps to finish the study and I secured more than $4 million to ensure the Corps would have adequate resources.
This month, that fight paid off. The Army Corps delivered its draft plan, and the recommended approach is to place sand directly on our beaches and replenish it on a regular cycle. No seawalls cutting us off from the water. Just sand, where it belongs. The Corps found it to be the most technically feasible, the most environmentally acceptable and the lowest-cost way to restore our shoreline. It also fits well with the City of Oceanside’s RE:BEACH initiative, which is designed to keep that sand in place longer.
The plan is still a draft, and the Army Corps has a public comment process in place through June 30. Every resident who cares about this coast has an opportunity to make your voice heard and tell the Corps you want this done via email to sdcs@usace.army.mil. We have to make them build it, and I will not let up until they do.
This milestone is part of a larger fight I have waged for our coastline since the day I took office.
In Encinitas and Solana Beach, I secured more than $30 million through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law for a shoreline project that widened those beaches and stabilized the bluffs. Work that was completed in 2024 after the tragic Grandview Beach collapse showed us the stakes.
In San Clemente, I secured more than $16 million to replenish the beach and protect the rail corridor that runs along the water, completing the first phase and funding the second. As part of that work, we have a 50-year commitment from the Army Corps to keep replenishing the beaches in San Clemente, Encinitas and Solana Beach.
And in Oceanside, alongside the long-term plan, the more than $8.2 million I secured this year for harbor dredging is what put that fresh sand on the beach you see today, the largest replenishment in years. That funding also pays for a second dredge this fall as we shift to a more effective annual cycle.
I serve on the House Appropriations Subcommittee that writes the budget for the Army Corps of Engineers. They are responsible for our beaches and they answer to the panel I sit on. None of this is partisan. Sand does not care who you vote for. Protecting communities from erosion and disaster is not a Democratic or Republican issue. When we set politics aside and focus on results, we can do big things.
The beaches of North County are the foundation of our economy, environment, and our way of life. I have been fighting to protect them since day 1, and as long as I have the honor of serving this community, I am not going to stop.
By: Rep. Mike Levin
Source: San Diego Union Tribune