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By Barbara
Henry
North
County Times
January 31, 2007
CARLSBAD
-- Beachgoers can expect more sand along Carlsbad's coastline
in the next several months, but they may want to wait for the
new stuff to dry out.
The Encina Power Station, which uses water from Agua Hedionda
Lagoon to cool its energy-generating equipment, has brought
out its dredging barge and started sucking up sand that has
built up within the lagoon.
The sand is then dumped on the beach in front of the power
plant, near the corner of Carlsbad Boulevard and Cannon Road.
"It's one of the few ways that we replenish beach in
Carlsbad regularly ... if we didn't do that, you'd get cobbles
-- rocks out there on the beach," said David Lloyd,
secretary of Cabrillo Power that operates the Encina plant.
Work began earlier this month and will continue until
mid-April.
The $1.5 million project will add up to 500,000 cubic yards of
sand to Carlsbad State Beach, or enough to give a good thick
cover to several miles of beachfront, Lloyd said.
Right now, the fresh sand looks darkish brown because it's wet
and it's got a scattering of marine organisms in it, he said.
"It'll dry out soon and be pretty," he said.
The power plant's dredging work brings both challenges and
benefits for the other companies that depend upon the lagoon.
Carlsbad Aqua Farm, which produces about 500,000 pounds of
seafood for local markets a year, must move its aquaculture
platforms in order to make way for the dredging equipment.
"What can be cumbersome to us is having to move the
lines," said the company vice president, Andrew Davis,
adding that each aquaculture line of shellfish weighs about
9,000 pounds. "Dragging them through the water can be
tedious."
Employees also have to be careful about how they set the lines
up in the new location --- each line needs to receive an even
exposure to nutrients in the water, he said.
However, Davis isn't complaining. He said he's happy to have
the lagoon dredged because that helps keeps the lagoon's
entrance to the Pacific Ocean open. The ocean provides the
nutrients that the shellfish feed on.
The Hubbs-Sea World Research Institute on the northern side of
the bay near the end of Garfield Street also has to move its
holding pen for juvenile fish because of the dredging work,
said Michael Burk, the facility's manager.
The giant fish pen, which consists of a floating dock and an
underwater netted area that drops 15 to 18 feet into the
water, is a transitional spot for the institute's fish after
they go through indoor tanks and before they're released into
the wild.
The institute, which currently has about 400,000 juvenile
white sea bass, benefits from the dredging work because sand
removal helps maintain the lagoon's depth, Burke said.
"Maintaining the depth of the lagoon is important because
you don't want the net floating on the bottom," Burk
said. "If there's anything sharp on the bottom, it'll
tear up the net."
The power plant embarks on the dredging effort roughly every
two years in order to keep the lagoon from filling up with
sand. Right now, there's a sand bar that has developed in the
middle of the lagoon, Lloyd said. He added that they joke that
when the sand bar is big enough for local teens to start
hosting nighttime bonfires, then it's time to dredge.
Contact staff writer Barbara Henry at (760) 901-4072 or bhenry@nctimes.com.
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