Buena Vista Lagoon Enhancement Project: 65% Design and Engineering Plans

The overall goals of the Buena Vista Lagoon Enhancement Project are to address sedimentation and invasive vegetation encroachment, as well as declining coastal biodiversity, degrading water quality, water circulation restriction, and increased vector concerns. The Buena Vista Lagoon is a 220-acre State Ecological Reserve that supports 8 state and federally listed threatened/ endangered wildlife and plant species. Over the past 30 years, approximately 60 acres of open water habitat has been lost due to the accumulation of sediment and the expansion of cattails, a typically freshwater species. Current conditions have resulted in poor water quality, increased flooding, vector-associated disease, and general ecological decline. In 2004 the Buena Vista Lagoon Restoration Feasibility Study was completed, and SANDAG has been working with stakeholders to include the property owners of the Cities of Oceanside and Carlsbad since 2013 to move the project forward. After significant public and stakeholder input, the CEQA environmental review process was completed in 2017. The SANDAG Board of Directors adopted a resolution to accept the Modified Saltwater Alternative (MSA) in 2020. The MSA includes a feasible combination of elements from the Saltwater and Hybrid alternatives as analyzed in the Final EIR and in response to public testimony from critical property owners.
SANDAG has also completed preliminary design and engineering for the Modified Saltwater Alternative. The MSA will enhance hydrological connectivity between the lagoon and the ocean by 1) removing the existing weir, 2) constructing a new tidal inlet, and 3) expanding and constructing channels that connect the lagoon basins under the Carlsbad Boulevard, I-5, and LOSSAN bridges. The proposed design will also grade, excavate, and remove accumulated sediment, and contour within the lagoon. The MSA also includes periodic maintenance of the ocean inlet in the Weir Basin that were included as part of the compromise with the landowners who own the weir at the lagoon inlet.
The proposed project will develop 65% restoration designs and engineering plans for the MSA. In this process, SANDAG will work with other project proponents and stakeholders to further refine the MSA, and implement necessary studies, geomorphic, hydrologic and sea level rise modeling, and a carbon sequestration and release budget for future permitting of the Buena Vista Lagoon Enhancement project. The project proponents will include the WRP Wetland Managers Group and the WRP Science Advisory Panel on the advisory committee(s) for the project. The project proponents will incorporate WRP feedback in the project design plans.