The future of Buccaneer Park was on the agenda of the South Oceanside Community and Merchants Association. The city has three projects going forward:
- Redeveloping the La Salina Wastewater Treatment Plant
- Restoration of the Loma Alta Slough
- Repairing/replacing the Buccaneer Park restrooms
The first of these three items was the subject of the today’s presentation at Beach Break Cafe, by Lindsay Leahy, principal water engineer of the city’s water utilities department.
The specific project presented was the decommissioning of the La Salina WWTP. Rather than upgrade the plant built in 1949, the city decided in 2014 to close it. However, closing this requires building a lift station to take all the sewage that flows via gravity to from South O, Fire Mountain and downtown, and pump it back to the San Luis Rey WWTP built in 1972.
This will require building a new return pipe under Oceanside Blvd. to Garrison Blvd. It also requires building a pump station at the La Salina site, and both have to be working before La Salina can be decommissioned in 2022 (perhaps by the end of 2022).
Future of Buccaneer
On the west side, the future of Buccaneer depends on getting sand back on Oceanside beaches. Currently the city is prioritizing sand around the pier over the rest of the city.
However, the La Salina decommissioning will free up 2/3 of the 10.6 acre side, located between the railroad tracks and Pacific St, north of Loma Alta Creek. The current sketches show 66 parking spaces as part of the pump station construction. The city has not announced (or even decided) its plans for the remaining 7 acres.
The creek (slough) restoration one of the 100 or so sites being restored by the Southern California Wetlands Recovery Project. In addition to wetlands restoration, it will also include additional walking and/or bike trails along the north side of the creek. The wetlands project is the subject of an August 15 workshop from 5-7 p.m at the downtown library.
Finally, the city is long overdue to fix the decrepit bathrooms at Buccaneer. Leahy said the city will issue an RFP to study this remodeling.
Public input for all three projects will be sought in the remainder of 2019 and throughout 2020. It appears that the use of the unused part of La Salina — crucial to the future of Buccaneer and South O — will be subject of later hearings.
Save South O 
Sand creating breakwaters should be built all the way to Carlsbad…. sand should be our number 1 priority. If it takes building several rock breakwaters then I’m for it.. We want more places for families to play on the beach. We want more breaks for surfers. We want more places for fish and wildlife to thrive.
The waste treatment plant should be moved because it is dangerously close to the ocean. If there is an earthquake or worse… it could ruin our community. It smells terrible and is too close to Buccaneer Beach … I ride my bike by there every day and the smell is just horrible… some days it smells at the Buccaneer Cafe … not good for that business.
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They are permanently closing the treatment plant, because it’s more efficient to have one big plant further inland. So it should be gone in a few years.
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