ENCINITAS -- Stroll along the beach in northern Encinitas this month and you may seem some strange reddish sand and an unusual murkiness to the water.
The color will fade to a customary beige and the cloudiness will subside, say officials, but the lasting effects of 37,000 cubic yards of newly reclaimed sand will be enjoyed for years to come.
"We're a beach town," said Encinitas Councilman Jerome Stocks. "We want a beach."
The San Diego Association of Governments estimates that 50,000 cubic yards of sand are lost each year from Encinitas beaches as a result of tidal and wave action, aggravated by human activity.
Early Thursday morning, large dump trucks began moving the sand, 16 cubic yards at a time, from Pacific Station, the $40 million mixed-use development site in downtown Encinitas. The access point was Ponto Beach in south Carlsbad. By noon they had already deposited around 1,000 cubic yards of sand.
The "opportunistic beach sand project" is the result of a partnership between Cardiff-based John DeWald and Associates, the developer of Pacific Station, in conjunction with Phase 3 Properties Inc. and the city of Encinitas, with cooperation from the city of Carlsbad.
Encinitas Mayor Maggie Houlihan heralded DeWald as a real maverick for the community.
"This is a perfect example of public and private partnership," said Houlihan. "John could have sold the sand to a concrete plant, but instead we are reusing and recycling it to benefit beachgoers."
And no taxpayer dollars are being used. The $135,000 cost is covered by a SANDAG mitigation fund collected from property owners seeking to build sea walls. This is the first time the fund has been tapped since it was created nearly a decade ago.
County Supervisor Pam Slater-Price said that the sand project is "ideal," and she commended all parties involved for the effort and cooperation it took to get done.
"It's amazing how complicated it can be to put nature back after man puts it asunder," Slater-Price said.
DeWald's company had to repeatedly core drill 25 feet down, then have the samples tested for quality, size and contamination. The developer was pleased when a large amount of "high quality sand" was discovered 7 feet down. A lengthy permitting process followed.
It took more than a year to finalize plans and obtain approvals from a dozen federal, state and local agencies and municipalities including the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Army Corps of Engineers, and Department of Fish and Wildlife, and the California Coastal Commission, Fish and Game, State Lands, and State Parks departments.
DeWald said that Steve Aceti, executive director of the California Coastal Coalition, talked him into the "crazy idea" over breakfast in 2007. He added that it was an easy decision because, as an Encinitas resident he "cares about our beaches."
Aceti announced at the press conference at Ponto Beach that SANDAG had just been selected for a separate pilot project for a Regional Sediment Management Plan under a state and federal collaboration -- the Coastal Sediment Management Work Group.
Aceti said the new, generic permitting plan will make future opportunistic sand projects more streamlined and cost-effective.
Officials estimate that the sand should be fully deposited by the end of January.
