Sand placement activities for the San Clemente Shoreline Project are projected to begin in mid-December, Coastal Zone Administrator Leslea Meyerhoff reported to the San Clemente City Council on Tuesday night, Nov. 7.
Another development Meyerhoff provided was the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ selection of Manson Construction, a company headquartered in Seattle that specializes in dredging and marine construction, as the project’s contractor in late September.
She also listed a pre-construction meeting involving Manson, USACE and city officials scheduled for Wednesday, Nov. 8, in addition to other parts of the project timeline.
“Conceptually, right now, (project officials are) talking about mobilization of dredge equipment, pipeline segments, etc., as early as about three weeks from now,” said Meyerhoff. “They’re talking, generally, right after Thanksgiving, bringing the first pieces of equipment to the city beach.”
The act of placing the roughly 251,000 cubic yards of sand from Linda Lane to T-Street will take approximately 50 days, with a schedule of 24 hours, seven days a week, for dredging sand from the source near Oceanside, plus 12 hours, seven days a week (7 a.m.-7 p.m.), for sand placement and shore equipment operations in San Clemente.
Meyerhoff added that post-construction demobilization is anticipated to occur during late January and early February.
The city will continue the rollout of its outreach plan, which will provide communications in the form of press releases for milestones, social media posts, and public noticing.
Meyerhoff also responded to Mayor Pro Tem Steve Knoblock’s comments about placing sand at a later date to avoid erosion from high-energy waves in the winter.
“Unfortunately, there is not flexibility in the schedule, because this contractor needs to move to other locations immediately upon completion of the San Clemente project,” she said. “They’ve got a large contract that they’re working under, and all of the subsequent projects will basically have a domino effect of being delayed (if the San Clemente project is pushed back).”
The city has asked the USACE to take responsibility for investigating other potential offshore borrow sites to find more sand, according to Meyerhoff, but it hasn’t received an answer yet.
The city is also working on submitting a grant application to the California Coastal Commission within the month of November.
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