Crews improve Carmel lagoon drainage

“It’s really shaky in my shoes,” saYS 6-year-old Rowan Day.

A single bulldozer pushed sand from the north to the south side of Carmel Beach.

“It’s just amazing how they can just go anywhere without sinking,” said Day.

Along with entertaining onlookers, this project is about improving drainage of the lagoon.

“It’s getting up to that level where we start to get concerned that there’s a real risk of potential flooding for the adjacent communities,” said Melanie Beretti, with the Monterey County Resource Management Agency.

To reduce the flooding to homes in low lying areas Monterey County Public works crews shaved about a foot-and-a-half of sand off the top of the barrier between the lagoon and the ocean.

“There will be about a 60-foot channel that the water will flow through on the southern beach, where there’s a natural rock slot where the lagoon usually breaches at,” said Shawn Atkins, maintenance manager for the Monterey County Department of Public Works.

Crews said this action will also help sustain a sandbag wall currently keeping the lagoon from flowing into communities.

“If the lagoon continues to rise much higher then we’re at risk of that sandbag wall no longer serving and having flood into the neighborhood,” said Beretti.

Officials said this project also optimizes species and ecosystem protection.

“The desire is to keep the elevation of the lagoon as high as possible to provide good habitat for those endangered species,” said Atkins.

It will take up to 24 hours for the lagoon to fill back up and flow into the ocean.