Commission to vote on marine center

Alicia Robinson

The California Coastal Commission is poised to approve a

state-of-the-art marine studies center and water quality lab on

Shellmaker Island.

If the commission approves the $4-million project on Wednesday,

construction could begin next summer, said Dave Kiff, Newport Beach

assistant city manager.

The facility would house offices for state Department Fish and

Game staff, teaching labs for students and a water quality testing

lab for the county that would replace the temporary trailer now used

for water testing.

Planning the center was a collaborative effort of Fish and Game,

UC Irvine, Orange County, Newport Bay Naturalists and Friends and the

Coastal Commission.

The project design is complete and includes environmentally

friendly touches, such as solar panels for the roof, a system to

drain rainwater from the roof onto plants, and a permeable parking

surface to control runoff, Kiff said.

Shellmaker Island is made of material dredged from the bay and is

not incredibly stable, so the building would be placed on a

reinforced cement pad that would sit on the island’s surface, Kiff

said. The pad would shift in the event of an earthquake without

causing the building to collapse.

The city still needs about $1 million for the science center, but

that won’t necessarily hold the project back, Kiff said. The design

would allow the facility to be built in phases with the money that’s

already available. Construction should take about a year.

“We’re continuing to look for those funds, and we think that we’re

going to be successful in finding them,” Kiff said.

Coastal commission program analyst Fernie Sy said commission staff

members will recommend approval of the Back Bay science center plan

but with 13 conditions attached. Conditions will include more

ecological buffers to protect wetlands and a biologist on site during

construction, he said.

“I think the use is something that we do support,” Sy said.

The community has also been supportive of the project, Kiff said.

“Everybody sees Shellmaker Island as a kind of underused and

downtrodden place that, if it were restored and some of the habitat

brought back, it would really add tremendously to the habitat of the

bay overall,” he said.

Newport Bay Naturalists and Friends member Jack Keating said the

group will continue to provide educational programs in the Back Bay

after the new facility is built.

“We’ve been living with temporary facilities out at Shellmaker

Island for quite some time, so we’re really anxious to get this

project moving forward,” he said.

Bob Caustin, founder of environmental group Defend the Bay, said

he’s looking forward to development of an educational facility on the

island. The temporary buildings there now don’t give the public a

very good impression of the back bay, he said.

“It’s almost an embarrassment for a resource such as the Upper

Newport Bay to not have something like this plan,” he said.

The island would eventually have teaching and observation stations

and walking trails under this plan.

“You can go for a very short walk and see an incredible variety of

estuarian creatures,” Caustin said.

The California Coastal Commission will hear the Department of Fish

and Game’s permit request at a meeting in Monterey, Calif. on

Wednesday.