Lagunans want dredging suspended

Tons of sediment from a Newport Beach dredging project are being dumped off Crystal Cove and some Laguna Beach residents — including the mayor — are concerned about the environmental impacts it may have on protected Laguna waters.

Roger Butow, founder and chairman of the Clean Water Now! Coalition, is worried about possible contaminants in the material and is aiming to get the dredging project suspended until Laguna residents have a chance to weigh in on the issue.

“I want a pollution intervention right now,” Butow said.

The dump site, 1,600 feet down and three miles off the coast, is a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) approved site that is near the border of an EPA district border that separates the two coastal cities.

Newport residents were informed of the dumping, as well as the dredging of the Upper Newport Bay. Laguna, however, is not technically in the dump site’s district and was left out of the loop.

Determined Laguna will have its say, Butow petitioned the Laguna Beach City Council to take up the issue at Tuesday’s meeting. He hopes the city will ask a judge to stop the dredging until Laguna can discuss it.

Failing that, he hopes to enlist a wealthy Lagunan to take the issue up in court and demand a cease and desist order. “We never got to stand up and defend our part of the planet,” Butow said.

Laguna Beach Mayor Toni Iseman said the council feels that with currents taking drift material toward Laguna’s coastline, the city should have been consulted.

“It’s important information, and I think its remarkable that they didn’t inform us,” Iseman said.

Butow hopes he will be able to get the some mitigations before the project continues. He hopes to get the site encapsulated — covered — to prevent the sediment from drifting. He also hopes to get a backup tugboat in case one hauling a sediment barge loses power.

If Butow succeeds in halting the dredging, he will be stopping an environmental preservation project, Newport Beach officials contend.

Upper Newport Bay

The Upper Newport Bay is a saltwater estuary fed mostly by San Diego Creek. The space is a protected ecological reserve. It’s one of the last remaining natural estuary systems in Southern California.

As is common of estuaries, silt and sediment collect in the bay as it’s pushed downstream toward the ocean. The deposits have compiled over a span of decades, making the bay ever shallower.

The sediment in the bay is already present in the open waters. Heavy rains push a plume of sediment out the mouth of Newport Harbor, sending it from Huntington Beach to Dana Point.

But intermittent rains aren’t enough to keep the bay flushed, and the area is in danger of filling in. The dredging project was started to save the bay from drying up.

“If we didn’t remove sediment from the Upper Bay, it would turn into a meadow instead of being one of Southern California’s last remaining natural estuaries,” Newport Beach Assistant City Manager Dave Kiff said.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is the group charged with completing the dredging project. The Corps classifies the project as an Ecosystem Restoration Project, the same designation as the restoration of the Florida everglades.

The clamshell dredges pulling out the tons of sediment are also digging channels in the bay to give the future silt a place to be out of the way. This will push subsequent dredging projects further into the future.

Core samples were drilled prior to the dredging to confirm the sediment was up to the EPA’s regulations to dump at the site.

Kiff said that while the Upper Bay’s sediment is safe for dumping, any material from the Lower Newport Bay would carry toxins that would make it far more difficult to qualify for the dump site.

It’s on Newport Beach’s wish list, but no dredging projects are planned for the Lower Newport Bay.

The Disposal Site

The EPA approved dump site, known as LA-3, is three miles off shore from Crystal Cove. Sediment is hauled out on a barge via tugboat and is generally deposited between the three- and four-mile mark.

LA-3 is centered over Newport Canyon, an underwater trench that stretches up the Orange County Coastline between the shore and Catalina Island. Sediment is dumped in the canyon at a depth of about 1,600 feet.

The EPA commissioned a 392-page Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) which was prepared in 2004 before the site was approved for use. According to the EIS, the canyon would naturally receive sediment from erosion.

The canyon is home to various sea urchins and sea stars, and fish such as Dover sole, longspine thornyhead, and dogface witch-eel.

Environmental Impact

Butow’s main environmental concerns are over chemicals present in the sediment through urban runoff, and what those contaminants might do to marine life, especially if it drifts toward Laguna.

During Tuesday’s council meeting, Butow even went as far as to say he’d be willing to challenge Newport Beach’s claim that the sediment isn’t dangerous by catching a fish and taking it to Newport officials.

“If they think the water is safe, they will eat the fish,” Butow said.

Orange Coast College Marine Science Instructor Dennis Kelly says he’d be more than comfortable taking up that challenge.

Kelly said he shared the same concerns as Butow in the 1970s when dredging projects first began dumping sediment in similar sites. After 30 years of seeing the process again and again, Kelly says the impact dumping has on the environment is minimal.

“There has been 60 years worth of study and documentation on the impact that these dump sites have and it’s nil — there’s no long-term or even short-term negatives,” Kelly said.

Some sea creatures are initially buried, but Kelly saidthat the ecosystem at the bottom of the dump site will look virtually the same within a year.

The EIS prepared for the EPA and Corps itself states that using the site would pose no environmental threat.

According to the document, “impacts from dredged disposal operations on water quality and geology are considered insignificant.”

Which is why Kiff is comfortable dumping the sediment in Newport Beach waters.

“This material couldn’t be dumped here if it was toxic,” Kiff said.

Kelly said the county’s coastal ecosystem would actually be in greater danger if the dredging stopped. Fish species use the estuary as a breeding grounds and native birds, such as the endangered California Least Tern, nest there. Kelly said it’s a unique ecosystem that, while once common in Southern California, is now rare.