Dump site in waters sought

Andrew Edwards

The Environmental Protection Agency is accepting public response to a

draft report that would designate an area in the waters off Newport

Harbor as a permanent site to dump dredged materials.

Newport Beach officials support the plan, which was written by the

EPA and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

“If we didn’t have the site, we’d have to haul the waste up to Los

Angeles, which would double the cost of these types of projects,”

Assistant City Manager Dave Kiff said.

The dollar figure for major dredging work can range from $30

million to $40 million, Kiff added.

The leaders of two local environmental groups said their

organizations have not yet formed positions on the proposal. Nancy

Gardner, who heads the Newport Beach chapter of the Surfrider

Foundation, and Orange County Coastkeeper Executive Director Garry

Brown said their groups would have to know more about the

environmental impact report before taking a side.

One activist, Jan Vandersloot, co-founder of the Ocean Outfall

Group, said dumping should take place elsewhere.

“I do not believe that it is a good idea for that to be put in

Newport Canyon. That’s where the sewage plume comes up through that

canyon from the Orange County Sanitation District site 4 1/2 miles

offshore,” he said.

Newport Canyon is an underwater formation where dredging waste

would be dumped, if the proposed plan goes into effect. The report’s

authors stated dumped materials would settle below waste from the

OCSD and would not impact discharge from the sanitation district.

The report contains a largely positive assessment of the

environmental impacts of a permanent dumping site. Disposal would

have an essentially “negligible” and localized effect on water

quality, and there would be only a “minimal” impact on fish and

marine mammals. The document acknowledged that under a worst-case

scenario -- much more dredging than anticipated -- emissions caused

by dredging activities could have a significant effect on air

quality, though an EPA staffer said air pollution could be

controlled.

When contractors apply for permits to dredge, they must estimate

how much pollution their equipment will cause.

“They would have to do their own air-quality analysis,” EPA

oceanographer Allan Ota said.

Dumping has been allowed off Newport Beach since the 1970s, though

for three decades the disposal area was classified as an interim

dumping site. The area was set to be shut down in 1997, but Congress

granted extensions through 2002 for the 1998-99 dredging of Upper

Newport Bay. During that project, dredgers missed the target area for

dumping, and the EPA levied more than $700,000 in penalties against

Orange County and the dredging contractor, Soli-Flo.

Silt from the Santa Ana River dredging project is not being dumped

at the old disposal area but is being used to build an island bird

haven.

The site retained its interim designation for so long because

during most years, little dredging occurred in Newport Harbor and

Dana Point, Ota said. The large project in the Upper Newport Bay, and

the prospect of similar efforts in the future, convinced state and

county officials that a permanent site was needed.

If a permanent site is approved, 2.5 million cubic yards of

nonhazardous dredging waste will be dumped off Newport Harbor per

year, Ota said. The new site would be about 4.5 nautical miles south

of the entrance to Newport Harbor and about 1,600 feet deep at its

center.

The EPA will accept public comments on the draft report through

March 7. Public meetings on the plan are scheduled to be held from 2

to 4 p.m. and 7 to 9 p.m. at the Peter and Mary Muth Interpretive

Center, 2301 University Drive, Newport Beach. The draft report can be

accessed at https://www.epa.gov/region09/water/la3/.

* ANDREW EDWARDS covers business and the environment. He can be

reached at (714) 966-4624 or by e-mail at andrew.edwards@latimes.com.