Dredging is just one part of solution

While reading Jo Carol Hunter’s letter to the editor over my oatmeal,

I am compelled to respectfully respond to some of Hunter’s statements

that imply that Upper Newport Bay is not worth the attention and

funding it gets (she calls the bay a “boondoggle”). Let me offer the

following thoughts:

Silt removal from the bay is mandated by federal law. The court’s

interpretation of the Clean Water Act requires us to keep sediment

out of the Bay and to remove it once it’s there. When you drive

University Drive, near UC Irvine, you go past sediment catch basins

that the city funds (along with upstream cities) on an ongoing basis.

Those basins trap and remove upstream sediment before the sediment

gets into the Upper Bay. The city spends about $70,000 a year to do

this. The proposed Newport Bay Ecosystem Restoration Project (the

“Big Dredge”) is intended to occur just once every 21 years. This

project is also a federal mandate -- in large part because of Defend

the Bay’s lawsuits against the United States Environmental Protection

Agency in the mid-1990s.

Contrary to Hunter’s assertion, we don’t dredge every year. Nor do

we spend “millions year, after year, after year.” We don’t dredge

even every five or 10 years. The Ecosystem Restoration Project’s

scope is unprecedented -- it’s never been done before. The last major

dredging project was only one-third the size and cost, and it wasn’t

intended, as this one is, to fully restore the Upper Bay to its

optimal ecosystem.

We have made some major strides in working with upstream

communities such as Irvine, Costa Mesa, Santa Ana, Tustin and Lake

Forest, to stop sediment transport and the trash that comes down the

watershed with each “first flush” of a major rain event. Hunter

should see the great work that Lake Forest has done in Serrano Creek

(a Back Bay tributary) to protect the creek’s slopes from sediment

loss. It’s truly remarkable to see the kind of community support that

the Serrano Creek Project has received. Further, each city is subject

to new and stringent trash removal requirements from streets, curbs

and catch basins. We have a ways to go, but the cities have made a

good start.

Next, Hunter falls into a trap that I think many people fall into,

and it’s unfair. There is a smell to the Upper Newport Bay at low

tide -- it’s a strong smell, but it comes from the very natural

decomposition of all of the bay’s biology. If humans weren’t here, it

would smell just as strongly. The Back Bay’s smell is not due to

sewage -- sewage is not discharged into the bay in any legal way.

There are no legal discharges from sewage treatment plants into the

bay. Accidental spills (where a line gets blocked from tree roots or

a restaurant’s grease control device fails) are, thankfully, fewer

and farther between. The year 2003 saw the fewest spills (six) of any

recent year. We have an aggressive “illegal connection” detection

program to find and disconnect errant wastewater pipes, and the bay

is officially and significantly a federally-designated “no-discharge”

harbor.

That does not mean that some boaters don’t illegally pump their

heads into the bay. We think it happens rarely -- and we and the

Orange County Sheriff’s Harbor Patrol aggressively seek out illegal

dischargers. Pumping a head into the bay is a serious criminal

violation of the Clean Water Act that can subject a violator to huge

fines and jail time. Detection is difficult, but I also believe that

fewer and fewer boaters show this blatant disregard for the law and

the bay’s valuable habitat.

Finally, I’ll take this opportunity to remind everyone that urban

runoff -- correctly cited by Hunter to bay pollution -- remains a

problem. So please do your best to limit runoff (water from

over-watering your yard, hosing down your driveway, or washing your

car in the street) to protect the bay. Remember that storm drains are

for rain only -- they are designed to take rainwater off of our

streets quickly so that we don’t flood. The water does not go through

any treatment process as it hits the gutter -- it shoots down pipes

beneath the streets and goes straight to the bay or ocean. Readers

should report any illegal discharges of runoff to the city’s water

quality enforcement team at (949) 644-3215.

We’re making great progress with the Back Bay. And I know that the

Newport Bay Ecosystem Restoration Project -- far from being Hunter’s

“boondoggle” -- will, if funded (with thanks to Rep. Chris Cox), be a

critical milestone in the Upper Bay’s continued protection.

TOD W. RIDGEWAY

Newport Beach

* EDITOR’S NOTE: Tod Ridgeway is the mayor of Newport Beach.

Jo Carol Hunter is correct when she states that the Back Bay is

gorgeous and ugly at the same time. The Upper Newport Bay and the

watershed that feeds it is a complex system that has been messed up

by our actions -- all of our actions. She is also correct when she

states “dredging is an incomplete solution.”

If you were to pick a historical time when “modern man” really

started to mess things up in the bay, it would be at the beginning of

the 20th century. That was when a channel was dug toward Upper

Newport Bay to improve agricultural drainage for those areas on

either side of Peters Canyon Wash. And the time when the ridge that

had historically dammed water in the Tustin Basin was breached,

draining the “Swamp of the Frogs.” Until this time, there were no

large storm flows carrying large amounts of sediment into the bay.

This was the beginning of accelerated sedimentation of the bay. We

are not going to dam up San Diego Creek and return to the “Swamp of

the Frogs” unless a lot of people move out of Irvine and Tustin.

As with many issues regarding the spending of public money, it is

tempting to list all of the things that are being ignored to do this

or that “less important project.” The point being missed is that in

our current system, money is allocated for specific needs and is not

in one big pot. You can argue the merits of such a system, but that

is the way it is. In this case, voters chose to raise money via bonds

to address or prevent man-made problems in the environment, so that

money is earmarked for environmental projects. The same process just

took place in last week’s election when voters chose to raise money,

through the sale of bonds, for physical school repairs and upgrades.

The budget process at the federal level is similar, in that money in

the budget is allocated to particular areas.

The money comes from many different sources. The overall cost of

the dredging project is too large for the city, county or state to

handle alone. So the process is to use a matching system whereby one

entity starts the ball rolling by coming up with some “seed money.”

Other government entities are then approached to “match” the funds.

In many cases, private foundations, companies and even individuals

are also approached and participate. It all comes together like a

house of cards, through a lot of work by many people and

organizations. When one player balks -- in this case the federal

government -- the project stalls and can’t move forward. Many

projects, this one in particular, can’t effectively be done

partially.

In regards to the beauty: The beauty I see is what photographer

Kent Treptow captured in his photos featured in the Pilot on Jan. 21.

The beauty many don’t see is under the surface in the teeming life of

the mud and the nursery in the waters of the estuary. The beauty of

the bay is in the huge number of critters that make it home or a

resting and feeding stop on there way north or south. These critters

need an estuary, not a meadow. The beauty is also in the diverse

habitat and plants that cover the estuary.

You mention the stench, which you categorize as ugly. In reality

this is actually a systemic beauty, not the stench, but its cause. It

is not sewage. The rotting of large amounts of vegetation in the

normal cycle of life and decay in the bay creates the smell. It is

particularly strong in the Big Canyon area of the bay. When I take

people on kayak tours, we always get a good whiff as we approach the

shore at the Big Canyon parking area. We actually see the gas bubbles

coming up through the mud and water, as if scuba divers were swimming

below. This is part of the natural replenishment of the nutrients in

the mud, which feeds the snails, worms, clams and other denizens that

in turn provide food for the birds that probe the rich, black mud.

Now the real ugly: The garbage (trash) comes from us, and by that

I don’t mean just Newport Beach, but the residents of all of the

Newport Bay Watershed, extending from Lake Forest across to Santa

Ana. As long as we continue to use large quantities of throw-away

materials and don’t dispose of them responsibly, we will have this

problem. To me, this is the ugliest and it is preventable.

Hunter’s next item, runoff, is a problem that is recognized at all

levels of government and is receiving a great deal of attention as

evidenced by the very restrictive requirements in the new National

Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permitting requirements that

apply to cities, counties, the state and businesses regarding

drainage into public waters. Also, a great deal of dry weather runoff

is now routinely routed to the Orange County Sanitation District for

processing along with normal sewage flow.

As I hope is evident, the Upper Newport Bay is a complex and

wonderful place. It is part of a large watershed system that includes

a very large population of people and their related activities. The

dredging should be considered a stop gap measure, regarding sediment,

while long-term solutions are being put in place. Examples of these

include the construction and maintenance of sediment capturing basins

in San Diego Creek; requirements on construction projects to catch

and control all runoff; and better control and capturing of run off

from “hard scapes,” such as parking lots, streets and roofs.

The bay is beautiful, and the beauty is really much more than skin

deep. As with any complex system, if you look closely you will also

see the ugliness and scars of abuse and misuse. If the sediment issue

is not addressed, the “beauty of the bay” will have no meaning, since

it will become a meadow then be graded and covered with houses,

condos, and maybe a new mall or two -- adding to the 95% of wetlands

lost in the state.

I invite you, Hunter, and all that want to really find out about

estuaries, and particularly the Upper Newport Bay, to join the

Newport Bay Naturalists and Friends from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Estuary

Awareness Day on May 1 at Shellmaker Island, following the Great

Earth Walk in the morning.

DENNIS BAKER

Corona del Mar

* EDITOR’S NOTE: Dennis Baker is a board member and volunteer

naturalist for the Newport Bay Naturalists and Friends organization.