DATE: February 4, 2026
TO: Honorable Mayor and City Councilmembers
FROM: City Manager's Office
TITLE: ACCEPTANCE OF THE INFORMATIONAL PRESENTATION ON SHIFTING OCEANSIDE HARBOR DREDGING AND SAND PLACEMENT PROGRAM FROM SPRING TO FALL
RECOMMENDATION
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Staff recommends the City Council receive an informational presentation regarding a potential shift in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Oceanside Harbor Channel annual dredging and sand placement program from spring to the fall, intended to extend shoreline benefits, enhance coastal resilience, and increase operational predictability.
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BACKGROUND AND ANALYSIS
The annual Oceanside Harbor Channel dredging program serves two primary purposes: maintaining safe navigation within the Small Craft Harbor and Federal Boat Basin, and nourishing City beaches with sand removed from the Harbor Channel. Since its construction in 1942 and more consistently since the Small Craft Harbor construction in 1963, the Harbor Channel has needed to be routinely dredged to remove sediment build-up from the harbor navigation channel. For many decades, the harbor dredging has occurred either every other year or annually, with dredging typically done in the spring. Since the 1960s when the decision to dredge in spring was made, there have been major scientific advances to our understanding of currents, wave patterns, and sediment transport.
Over the past 25 years, studies and evaluations have been conducted by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE)[JT1] and the City, aiming to capitalize on new advances in coastal processes and to improve the efficiency of the dredging program. In 2000, the USACE completed a technical evaluation on the quality and efficiency of the Oceanside dredging program and its effects on the City's shoreline, effectively concluding that to maintain the channel more dependably, dredging should take place in winter or in fall ahead of the shift in swell direction. Winter or fall dredging would more like...
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