Oceanside’s City Council has approved an additional $2.3 million payment to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for the next phase of work in the long-running San Luis Rey River Flood Control Project.
The money authorized Dec. 18 will enable the Corps to complete ongoing below-ground geotechnical investigations by March 2025, according to a staff report provided to the council.
The new information could result in recommendations for design changes that would increase the overall cost of the project along with the share of the expenses that the city is obligated to pay, the report states.
The most recent estimate, prepared in October 2024, placed the total construction costs at $230 million, according to a financial summary provided to the city by the Corps. About $127 million of the total had been paid at the time.
Oceanside has agreed to pay 25% of the costs, or a little less than $58 million under the current estimate, and so far the city has paid almost half of that amount. The federal government is responsible for the rest of the money, doled out in congressional appropriations.
Authorized by Congress in 1970, the project is intended to clear sediment, debris and vegetation from hundreds of acres in the river channel and to armor some sections of the riverbed with concrete and rock walls or levees. Construction began in 1990, and the levees that line parts of the channel were finished in 2000.
The goal is to protect low-lying properties along more than seven miles of the river, between the Pacific Ocean and the College Boulevard bridge, from flood damage in anything less than the most severe storm likely to occur once in every 250 years.
The work finished so far is only enough to protect the area from the worst storm expected about every 70 years.
Completion of the project has been delayed time and again by funding shortfalls and environmental regulations. Excavation and construction, for example, are prohibited during the nesting season for rare bird species such as the least Bell’s vireo and the southwestern willow flycatcher.
Rep. Mike Levin, D-San Juan Capistrano, announced in 2022 that he had secured $5.2 million from the federal Water Resources Development Act of 2020 to renew the project.
Along with matching funds from Oceanside, the money was to pay for the geotechnical investigation of levees and environmental coordination, levee repair design, hydrology updates and hydraulic analysis, and the monitoring of both water quality and local species.
“This project is critical for protecting the surrounding community from flooding, but a number of environmental challenges and bureaucratic delays have repeatedly stalled progress,” Levin said in 2022. “It’s long past time for the Army Corps to finish their work and turn the project over to the city of Oceanside to protect families in the area from flood threats.”
Oceanside Mayor Esther Sanchez thanked Levin at the time for “his Herculean efforts” to restart the flood-control project.
“These funds will especially address the public safety of and economic impact to residents and businesses along the river who, along with flooding and fire hazards, continue to pay high flood insurance premiums until another phase of the project is achieved,” Sanchez said. “Without these funds, our city’s infrastructure would be at greater risk.”
Most of the year the river is more like a creek, fed largely by irrigation run-off. But during the rainy season it can turn into a raging torrent that threatens roads, bridges, homes, businesses and farmland.
Additional excavation for the project last was scheduled to begin in September 2017 under a $5.3 million contract the Corps of Engineers awarded to the Northern California company Steelhead Constructors.
The company was to remove 210,000 cubic yards of sediment from the riverbed. Any beach-quality sand obtained was to be trucked to the city’s shoreline south of the municipal pier. Sediment not clean enough for the beach was to be dumped at the El Corazon property north of Oceanside Boulevard.
However, environmental and construction issues arose, deadlines were missed, and the 2017 work failed to start.
Since then, maintenance of the river has mostly been confined to the city’s annual mowing and clearing of vegetation such as arundo donax, also known as giant reed. The tall, bamboo-like invasive species clogs the waterway and can cause flooding.
