Fish barge’s permit quest is still afloat

Harbor commission approves structure used to raise sea bass; City Council will have final say.The Newport Beach harbor commission voted Wednesday in favor of granting a new mooring permit for a barge used to raise white sea bass in the waters off the eastern Balboa Peninsula. The action was taken about three months after commissioners voted to suspend the barge’s permit.

The barge is used by the Balboa Angling Club-affiliated Pacific Fisheries Enhancement Foundation to raise fish. The facility’s ultimate fate will be decided by the Newport Beach City Council, which will take the commission’s recommendation into account when it decides whether a new mooring permit should be issued.

All five harbor commissioners present for Wednesday’s vote -- chairman John Corrough, Donald Lawrenz, Seymour Beek, Tim Collins and Marshall Duffield -- voted in favor.

Commissioners took a different tack at their September meeting, voting to suspend the barge’s permit and rejecting a proposal put forth by barge operators to clean up the facility to address harbor residents’ concerns that the barge was an eyesore. In October, Tom Rossmiller, Newport Beach harbor resources manager, invited Pacific Fisheries Enhancement Foundation president Alex Samios to submit a revised list of barge repairs in order to apply for a new mooring permit.

At Wednesday’s meeting, Beek said he was satisfied with barge operators’ repair efforts and the list of conditions proposed by harbor staffers that barge operators would have to meet in order to maintain any new permit.

“The Angling Club, once they were given these conditions, as far as I know, has acted in good faith,” Beek said.

Residents who have spoken against the barge in recent months showed up once again Wednesday to voice their concerns to harbor commissioners. Criticisms of the barge have tended to revolve around the twin contentions that the facility is not an aesthetic fit with the rest of Newport Harbor and that it attracts barking sea lions.

“No one in the residential area of the harbor wants the barge,” Balboa Peninsula resident Dan Gilliland said Wednesday.

Harbor commissioners left it up to City Council members to decide where the barge should be moored, assuming the council agrees the barge should have a spot in the harbor. The barge is currently moored east of the Balboa Pavilion, but it has been suggested it could be moved to a new mooring closer to the pavilion and other Balboa businesses.

Beek proposed that city staffers undertake public outreach efforts to let residents living near the water know that the City Council is likely to pick a location for the barge.

“If they [residents] aren’t here, believe me, they’ll be there when the City Council talks about it,” Beek said.

After the meeting, Corrough said he was pleased the barge matter is set to move forward to the City Council and that the harbor commission will have time to discuss other issues.

“We have so much other stuff that continually gets pushed aside for sea lions or this,” he said.

* ANDREW EDWARDS covers business and the environment. He can be reached at (714) 966-4624 or by e-mail at andrew.edwards@latimes.com.