Brian Renner and his son Maverick are Encinitas locals, and they came to the beach to watch phase 2 of the sand replenishment project, which was formerly called the Encinitas-Solana Beach Coastal Storm Damage Reduction Project.
“[Maverick] literally has a little place at home that has sand and miniature versions of what we see behind us,” Renner said.
The process starts with a dredge bringing in the sand from a borrow site just south of Solana Beach.
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“The dredge goes down to that exact location and puts down essentially two suction hoses, and it just kind of drives almost like a vacuum along the ocean floor,” Todd Mierau, coastal zone program administrator, said.
It sucks up to 4,500 cubic yards of sand and then brings it to a hose line off the Moonlight State Beach shore. Then, a compressor pumps it onto the shore.
“It's a mixture of sand, sediment and water — mostly water,” Mierau said.
As these trucks spread the new sand around, it’s wash and repeat four to six times a day.
“The idea is to minimize the energy of waves coming towards the bluff face,” Mierau said. “If you widen your beach, the wave energy breaks sooner, and it slowly kind of dissipates towards the bluff face.”
It’s tough work surveying the gaps while also trying not to get washed away — even for the professionals. But this beach really needs the sand after years of erosion.
Locals want their smooth beach back, too.
“I would say it's a good thing,” Renner said. “It's not very nice walking on rocks and with your bare feet.”
Crews work 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. and hope to finish this phase of the project within two months. They’ll be back every five years for the next 50 years for upkeep.
