Back Bay restoration plan holds water with supervisors

Paul Clinton

UPPER NEWPORT BAY -- An ambitious plan to restore Upper Newport Bay by

dredging sediment, moving an island and adding new wetlands took a major

step forward Tuesday when the plan was tentatively approved by the Orange

County Board of Supervisors.

The supervisors unanimously approved the project’s

environmental-impact report.

Before asking his colleagues to support the report, Supervisor Tom

Wilson said questions must still be answered about who will ultimately

foot the project’s $35-million bill.

Newport Beach has begun lobbying Rep. Chris Cox (R-Newport Beach) for

federal funding.

“If it sounds like I’m a bit excited, it’s because I am,” Wilson said.

“However, the work is not complete. We still have to work closely with

Congressman Cox if we are to get to the finish line.”

Local agencies involved in the project, not set to get underway until

2003, expect to pay for 35% of the cost, or $12.5 million.

That money was made available in the state budget with park bond money

from Proposition 12, which passed in March 2000. It was split over two

years, with about $7.52 million in the state’s 2001-02 budget.

If local officials have it their way, the federal government would

cover the remaining 65%, or $22 million. The Army Corps of Engineers is

spearheading the project.

The certification of the environmental report is a major step forward,

Newport Beach Assistant City Manager Dave Kiff said.

“The fact that the county approved it is just one hurdle toward

getting the muck out of the bay,” Kiff said. “Our remaining challenge is

to secure the federal side of the funding.”

Up next, the Army engineers will flesh out the details of the project,

including specific locations for the dredging and other work. Using heavy

dredging equipment, the engineers plan to remove 2.1 million cubic yards

of sediment.

The project has brought together a broad coalition of groups,

including Newport Beach, Costa Mesa, Irvine, Tustin, Lake Forest, Santa

Ana, the county, the state and the Army engineers.

In a Tuesday letter, Mayor Gary Adams urged Cox and Rep. Dana

Rohrabacher (R-Huntington Beach) to lobby for the funding in Congress.

Less sediment flowing into the bay will cut down on nitrogen and other

nutrients considered harmful to the bay, Adams said in the letter.

“Completing the project will enable the partnering jurisdictions to

meet, in large part, the total maximum daily load for nutrients and

sediment,” Adams wrote.

A series of federal standards exist limiting the amount of nutrients

that can flow into an impaired body of water. Those are known as total

maximum daily loads. The bay was designated as impaired by the

Environmental Protection Agency in the mid-1990s as a result of a lawsuit

brought by Newport Beach environmentalist Bob Caustin.

Caustin lauded the approval of the environmental documents but said he

worried about whether political wangling in Washington, D.C., would get

in the way of the request for federal funding.

“I’m thrilled to see the thing move forward,” Caustin said. Federal

funding requests “can become a political process. I hope they don’t use

Newport Bay as a pawn.”