Community Commentary -- Bill Langston

As the prime contractor for the new Balboa Bay Club, we at Snyder

Langston are very pleased that the issue of groundwater discharges from

dewatering the construction site has been resolved. This has been a very

frustrating situation both for our client and for us.

Snyder Langston has a hard-earned reputation for being meticulous

about environmental protection and we try to go way beyond what we’re

required to do. More important, the Balboa Bay Club has been an

institution in this community for more than 50 years and has been a very

careful steward of the waterfront environment it calls home.

That’s why we were disappointed that some of the Daily Pilot’s

coverage of the situation was skewed and, at times, just plain

mean-spirited.

Both the initial article on April 30 (“Water quality board fines

Balboa Bay Club”) and a subsequent editorial on May 5 (“Heal the bay”)

took the Bay Club to task without any mention that Snyder Langston, as

the prime contractor, is in charge of, and responsible for, all the

construction activity at the site, including the dewatering. We used

water treatment and testing consultants who we believed were experts in

dewatering and testing for compliance with the California Regional Water

Quality Control Board standards, and who had extensive experience with

the waters of Newport Bay.

The coverage turned ugly with a cartoon that ran alongside the May 5

editorial -- a gas mask with “BBC” stamped on it and a caption that read

“Balboa Bay Club Swim Mask.” If the cartoon was meant to be shocking, it

was. If it was meant to be humorous, it wasn’t.

The clear implication was that highly toxic, if not potentially

deadly, materials were being released into the Bay. The release of

naturally occurring sulfides that were a byproduct of decomposing

organics in groundwater was now being elevated to equal status with

dioxin, Love Canal and the Stringfellows landfill.

It might have been of more value to the Pilot’s readers to know that

the impacts of dewatering at the Bay Club are part of the same process

that gives the Back Bay that powerful odor at times. When the water

recedes, exposing the sediment on the bottom to the air, the result is

that unpleasant “rotten eggs” odor.

Likewise, the substance being pumped out from beneath the Bay Club

site was at times a foul-smelling, black slurry -- not unlike a pile of

leaves in the backyard that’s reduced to a shapeless black mass if it

sits there long enough. But natural byproduct or not, the sulfide levels

in the bay should definitely be monitored and regulated, which is why we

and our sub-consultants have worked closely with the state water quality

board from the start to meet the requirements for water treatment and

water quality reports.

It’s important to note that the violations for excess sulfide levels

in the groundwater being discharged were all discovered after the fact,

in the water quality reports that we had prepared and submitted to water

quality board. A review of those reports earlier this year for the period

of February 2001 to February 2002 showed excess sulfide levels for 20 of

those 365 days. The Federal Clean Water Act of 1999, Senate Bill 709

(1999) and Senate Bill 2165 (2000), require a mandatory penalty of $3,000

per violation, which we have paid.

We chose not to appeal the penalties, but we are trying to determine

why red flags and alarms weren’t sounded earlier, either by our water

quality consultants or the water quality board.

That issue aside, Snyder Langston accepts full responsibility for any

concerns over the dewatering process, and we are very sorry for any

inconvenience to our neighbors, especially the unpleasant odor they have

had to endure. Most importantly, we were relieved to hear that the

inadvertent release of sulfides didn’t do any damage to the bay.

The editorial urges the Bay Club “to make sure they are beyond

question when it comes to protecting the waters of Newport Harbor from

further pollution.” We want to assure the Pilot and the community that

Snyder Langston and the Balboa Bay Club have both done exactly that for

about half a century and we are fully committed to continuing to do so.

* BILL LANGSTON is a Newport Beach resident and chairman of Snyder

Langston.