OCEANSIDE (KGTV) — Bob Walker has been an Oceanside resident for 32 years, “I used to take my children down here to this beach right here we would put our towels on the sand, walk out to the waters edge and paddle out and surf.”
If you look at that same beach now, the sand has been washed away, “you do not see people using this beach and beach access whatsoever, we don’t have this beach any longer,” Walker tells 10News.
He’s now co-founder of Save Oceanside Sand, a local group advocating for jetties to be built along the coast to help build back up beaches and maintain sand levels.
They plan to propose a jetty at Tyson Street, Wisconsin Street, Buccaneer Beach and St. Malo.
Walker tells 10News the jetties will work to retain the sand, similarly to what Newport Beach has done with theirs, “they’ve got they have a series of eight groins."
Groins, also known as jetties, will help with the city’s annual dredging process.
Vicki Casper has also lived in Oceanside for over two decades, familiar with the dredging process, she says more needs to be done, “I’ve watched the sand be pumped back on the beach when they do the dredging and a month later its gone again."
The sand washes away with the southern swell, migrates toward La Jolla.
Walker tells 10News something needs to be done before North County loses all of its beaches, “this is the new reality the fact that we do not have any sand here whatsoever anymore.”
