Dredging fund gets famous name tag

June Casagrande

NEWPORT BEACH -- When Nancy and Jack Skinner went to the City Council

meeting Tuesday to talk about water quality, they didn’t expect to see

their own names on the agenda.

The Skinners, along with Frank and the late Fran Robinson, got a

surprise honor when Mayor Tod Ridgeway announced that a fund for dredging

the bay would be named after the four legendary local environmentalists.

“I can’t express what an indispensable resource they have all been in

working toward clean water in the Back Bay,” Ridgeway said in announcing

the decision.

The Robinson-Skinner Annuity is a $3.8-million fund that the Santa Ana

Regional Water Quality Control Board has offered Newport Beach to help

pay for dredging of the Back Bay. The money will go toward continued

dredging of the bay after a $32-million Army Corps of Engineers dredging

project is complete, probably in 2004.

Dredging helps the environment by removing polluted sediment from the

water. The money, which the council on Tuesday voted to accept, comes

from a settlement from the 1990 American Trader oil spill. The city will

invest the money and hold it in an annuity until it is needed for

dredging.

Nancy and Jack Skinner are longtime local activists for water quality

who are active in the city’s Coastal/Bay Water Quality residents advisory

committee, among other things. Frank and Fran Robinson, also longtime

environmental activists, stopped the Irvine Co. in 1969 from making a

deal that would have resulted in the development of condominiums and a

marina in the Back Bay.

Fran Robinson died July 1 of heart failure at age 82.

“We are very humbled by this honor,” Nancy Skinner said.