Officials working a long mooring shift

Alicia Robinson

City officials are launching a plan to realign offshore moorings in

the harbor, a move harbor users are hoping won’t rock too many boats.

The more than 700 offshore boat moorings were originally set down

according to lines drawn by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers around

1940, but over the years the moorings have shifted because of weather

patterns, tidal action and maintenance activities. The city’s harbor

resources department has started preliminary work on a project

designed to get the moorings back in their designated boundaries.

This is the first time since the harbor was designed in 1936 that

officials have reevaluated the location of offshore moorings, said

Harbor Resources Supervisor Chris Miller. The need to move the

moorings came to light in October, when the U.S. Army Corps of

Engineers refused to dredge part of the harbor until a number of

boats that were moored outside their demarcation lines were moved.

“This harbor really hasn’t been dredged properly since its

inception, so there hasn’t really been a need to look closely at it,”

Miller said. “The whole lower and upper bay needs to be dredged

eventually, so we thought it’d be a good idea to get everything

squared away for this dredging project.”

The mooring project will likely include getting the boat moorings

back within the proper lines as well as reorganizing moorings to more

efficiently use harbor space, which is at a premium.

“You wouldn’t want a 60-foot boat right next to a 30-foot boat,

because then you don’t have an even row,” Miller said. “Some people

will have to be relocated, but we’re really going to try and do our

best to keep everybody in the same general vicinity where they were.”

Mooring permits are issued by the city and aren’t supposed to be

sold by permit holders, so people generally attach them to the sale

of a boat. There’s about a 30-year waiting list for permits, which

can command from $20,000 to $40,000 depending on their size and

location, Miller said.

The Orange County Sheriff’s Harbor Patrol is working with the city

on the proposed rearrangement of moorings. The project will improve

safety for boaters in the harbor, Harbor Patrol Lt. Erin Giudice

said.

“There are some areas that are hard to access for us,” she said.

“Things are not like they are on the charts, and I guess when you’re

boating, you’re expecting things to be as the map or the chart says.”

Some who use the harbor, however, are questioning the project’s

benefits.

“It’s not as simple as just realigning moorings and boats,” said

Carter Ford, vice president of the Newport Mooring Assn., which

represents several hundred offshore mooring permit holders. “It’s a

matter of how the harbor works and how it meets the needs of all

these many different constituencies.”

Ford is concerned that moving the boats could widen some harbor

channels but narrow others, which he said won’t necessarily be safer.

“The jury’s still out, because we don’t have a lot of information

yet,” said Mark Sites, who is on the mooring association’s board and

has lived on his boat in the harbor for 28 years. “I think most

people want to make sure their moorings are in roughly the same

location.”

Boaters also are concerned that the annual fees charged for

mooring permits could increase because of the reshuffling, Sites

said. The last official increase in permit costs was about six years

ago, but the city has since changed the fee structure and just

recently allowed permit holders a final chance to enlarge their

mooring size -- which increases the cost -- before the boundaries are

moved, he said.

A consultant looking at the moorings might tell the city they’re

undervalued and suggest increasing the fees, Sites said.

The mooring study is in its beginning stages. The City Council

approved $106,000 for the project in the 2004-05 budget, but hiring

an engineer, studying the boundaries and collecting public input on

possible changes could take as long as a year, Miller said. While

that’s going on, city officials also will consider overhauling other

harbor regulations, such as whether mooring permit holders should be

required to keep a boat moored at all times.

Ford said it’s important to him that those who use the harbor are

included in the process from the beginning so everyone’s needs can be

met.

“I made a decision to move here 35 years ago because of this

harbor,” he said. “Change should be carefully considered.”