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.
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