Dredging project would move an island

Alex Coolman

NEWPORT BEACH -- The details of a proposed $30-million dredging

project to restore the silt-threatened habitat of the Back Bay will be

presented tonight at a meeting at City Hall.

The project, a collaboration between the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers,

the County of Orange and the city of Newport Beach, was nearly derailed

in June when a crucial $13-million chunk of funding was lost during state

budget negotiations in Sacramento. The funding was restored by Gov. Gray

Davis, however, and the project is now back on track.

Silt has been accumulating in the bay at the rate of 165,000 cubic

yards per year, said Jim Hutchison, study manager with the Corps of

Engineers.

It’s a flow that, if unchecked, would eventually fill up the bay,

eliminate the intertidal areas where animals thrive, and turn it into a

meadow.

“You’re slowly degrading the estuarine habitat,” Hutchison said. “As

the open water fills in and it turns into mud flat, you lose a lot of the

tidal influence on a day-to-day basis.”

Under the plan, more than 2 million cubic yards of silt will be

dredged from the bay and dumped offshore. The project will see the level

of the bay floor lowered by six feet and the dimensions of the bay’s two

major basins expanded dramatically.

What are today slender ellipses of water will become broad, nearly

circular pools that will not need maintenance dredging for more than 20

years, according to a study.

The project will also see the removal of an entire land mass, the

small “Tern Island,” which is at the top of the bay near the intersection

of Jamboree Road and Eastbluff Drive. The island will be relocated to a

location in the lower basin, near the mouth of the Santa Ana Delhi

Channel.

A smaller mass, “Hot Dog Island,” which is adjacent to Tern Island,

will remain in place.

The relocation will mean the upper basin can be dredged deeper and

more completely, Hutchison said. Also, the move may actually improve the

habitat for the birds that nest on the island.

In addition to these large-scale changes, the dredging will deepen the

channels around land masses near the shore in the Back Bay, a process

that is expected to help protect animals from predators.

The start date for the project, even under the best circumstances, is

still distant. Hutchison said it could be fall of 2003 before any silt is

moved.

Tonight’s meeting will take place at 7 p.m. at Newport Beach City

Hall, 3300 Newport Blvd.