Could standoff over eelgrass preservation and dredging be over?

In the years following its discovery in Newport Harbor, eelgrass has been getting a bad reputation among some dock owners.

Although the underwater grass with its green, slender blades plays an important role in the development of a suitable habitat for marine life in the harbor, the need to protect the plant has prevented many dock owners from dredging sediment under their slips for decades.

“A lot of people in the community came to hate eelgrass because when they discovered it was anywhere near their dock, it completely derailed their dredging project,” said city Harbor Commissioner Doug West.

The last time Newport Beach resident Bob Teller dredged under the dock that came with his commercial property on Balboa Island was 25 years ago. When he looks outside during low tide, he sees the two boats in his slip stuck in mud.

“It’s not bad for the boats,” he said. “But it’s bad for being able to rent space out on your dock.”

Teller isn’t the only one who isn’t dredging because of the often costly red tape wrapped around eelgrass. Last year, the city received dredging applications from fewer than 10 people out of about 1,200 dock owners.

However, under a new city plan, dock owners like Teller could soon see their boats sitting on water again instead of mud.

The plan, unanimously approved by the California Coastal Commission in June, would allow the city to not only dredge deeper in the harbor but also to disrupt a certain amount of eelgrass.

Harbor Resources Manager Chris Miller hopes the plan, which still needs to be approved by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, will be in place in the next several months.

Every five years, the city applies for a permit from state authorities to dredge under people’s slips. The document, called a Regional General Permit, prevents dock owners from having to perform the necessary, and often expensive, sediment testing in order to dredge, Miller said.

Under the new plan, the city could dredge deeper than before, up to 10 feet. The plan also would increase the annual volume the city could dredge, from 20,000 cubic yards to 75,000, according to harbor officials.

The sediment would be disposed of at a federally approved site several miles offshore.

The city’s plan also would lessen the requirements for eelgrass replenishment after dredging.

The federal government established eelgrass protections in the 1980s after several communities destroyed their eelgrass plants during dredging projects.

For years under the Southern California Eelgrass Mitigation Plan, Newport Beach dock owners who wanted to dredge would be responsible for replanting eelgrass somewhere in the harbor to make up for the plants they disrupted by moving sediment from beneath their slips.

Dock owners would be responsible for making sure the eelgrass grew in the new location for up to five years. If it died, the owner would be responsible for planting again.

Hiring a biologist to conduct tests, write reports and plant the eelgrass cost some more than $50,000, Miller said.

“The figures rack up over the years,” he said. “It’s not cheap. People started saying that they weren’t going to dredge because it was just too much.”

After listening to concerns from dock owners and residents, city officials authorized a survey of the eelgrass population in the harbor in 2003. In the past 10 years, the city has conducted four surveys mapping the locations and amounts of eelgrass.

Officials found that there are 90 acres of eelgrass throughout the harbor, as of the latest survey in 2014, Miller said.

“Before, it was a take-all approach. If you impact here, you need to mitigate there,” Miller said. “Our plan looks at eelgrass from a holistic management plan. We have eelgrass all over the harbor. If we impact 50 square feet here, is it really going to affect the entire ecosystem of eelgrass? Not likely.”

Still, the amount of eelgrass that can be harmed in a specific year would depend on how much is present in the harbor at the time, West said.

“We’re still dependent on Mother Nature to deliver healthy eelgrass throughout the harbor,” he said. “Mother Nature has a lot more to say about eelgrass than pretty much anything else.”

After dredging, dock owners probably would be asked to transplant eelgrass through seed bags or other measures. However, these would not be nearly as costly as previous eelgrass mitigation efforts, Miller said.

“We hope to change the public view and develop a better perception of what the eelgrass population does for our harbor,” Miller said. “The more we see, the better we are. There’s no reason to hate it now.”