2.0 Alternatives Considered
appropriated by Congress in fiscal year 1998 Supplemental Appropriations and Recission Act. The Navy
and the California Department of Boating and Waterways are the respective federal and state agencies
administering the funds. This funding source is providing for all engineering design and construction plans;
all environmental compliance costs, including CEQA/NEPA documentation, monitoring, and mitigation (if
necessary); all permitting activities; and construction.
2.2
PROCESS BY WHICH ALTERNATIVES WERE DERIVED
When the engineering design and environmental process was initiated in spring 1999, the SEC's goal was
to replenish regional beaches with as much sand as they could achieve within the budget. Given the
available funds, estimated cost for environmental compliance, engineering design plan and costs for
dredging, an estimated range of 2 to 3 million cy was calculated. To achieve that goal, it was necessary
to design a project that minimized potential impacts to sensitive resources. By designing such a project,
SANDAG could more readily obtain necessary permit approvals, minimize costs for post-construction
monitoring and mitigation, and maximize funds to pay for dredging, thereby maximizing sand quantity.
SANDAG initiated an iterative process ofidentifying sensitive resources, defining appropriate borrow sites
and dredge locations, modeling sand transport and designing appropriate receiver sites and footprints.
Throughout this process, the resource agencies were consulted and their input utilized (Sections 1.5 and
7.0). The SEC was kept informed and provided guidance at key decision points. Over time, some
potential borrow sites were eliminated from further consideration, dredge locations were altered, receiver
site footprints were modified, and sand quantities varied.
To define appropriate borrow sites, ten potential offshore borrow sites were evaluated for beach
replenishment suitability based on grain size and sediment analysis (Sea Surveyor 1999). Of those, four
were eliminated. Within the remaining six borrow sites, the dredge locations were refined over time to
avoid resources that were identified during the environmental process, e.g., artificial reefs and underwater
archaeological sites. The borrow sites which were eliminated and/or modified are described in Section 2.3.
To predict the movement of sand once placed on the various receiver sites, and therefore potential impacts
to sensitive resources, both analytical and numerical modeling were performed. (Appendix C contains
more detailed information about both types of modeling.) Analytical modeling (diffusion method) was used
on receiver sites at Mission Beach and Imperial Beach. The diffusion method is a simplified condition that
assumes an idealized straight shoreline. Given the location of the beach fill and breaking wave height, sand
Regional Beach Sand Project EIR/EA
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