4.8 Socioeconomics
Generally, beach replenishment has occurred for decades and there still appears to be an abundance of
sensitive habitats, while the commercial catch reported for Oceanside remains high for most commercial
species. The catch trends for commercial species landed at the port of San Diego generally are similar to
the trends for landing at Oceanside (Figure 3.8-2), suggesting that area factors are much more important
than local factors in determining catch. This also suggests that the numerous beach replenishment projects
inthe North County have had minimal effect on commercial resources. If beach replenishment does impact
commercial catch, then these impacts must be localized and fisherman make up deficits by fishing in other
areas. This would imply that resources are well distributed within each fish block so that localized impacts
have little effect overall.
It appears that declines in local fisheries may be more strongly linked to variables other than beach sand
replenishment. It is known that El Nio events and winter storms have significant impacts on commercial
fisheries. The 1997-98 El Nio has been followed by a precipitous drops in commercial catch for almost
every species for all of San Diego county. These regional trends in catch data are indicative of large scale
oceanographic events and not localized projects such as beach replenishment. The 1982-83 El Nio had
a much less measurable impact. Other factors include winter storms that cause loss of equipment and
hinder fisherman from working their traps.
Based on the available baseline fisheries data, there is likely to be no significant regional or localized impact
in the San Diego area or the North County subarea fisheries. Impacts may be felt at the individual fishing
operation level as a result of displacement from favored fishing locations; however, the individual
operational level impacts cannot be accurately quantified with the currently available data.
Alternative 1 would require approximately 147 days of dredging with an additional 30-40 days for
equipment movements. Even though the dredging duration will extend for months, only a small area of the
60 mile coastline would be affected at any one time. That is, with only one or (possibly) two dredges
operational for the project, the actual area that would be affected at any point in time would be localized
and not preclude other areas from being fished. Additionally as described in Section 2.4, SANDAG is
committed to coordinating dredge operations with the commercial fisherman so that, via timely notification,
areas can be fished the maximum amount of time and only the area of active dredge would be restricted.
Thus, there would be no significant long-term preclusion impacts as a result of the dredging operations.
Regional Beach Sand Project EIR/EA
Page 4.8-5
99-69\SANDAG EIREA 4.1 to 4.13.wpd 7/17/00
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