Newport dredging could stall

With the $39-million Upper Newport Bay dredging project about one-third finished, officials are realizing they may have to scramble for more funding to get the work done.

Newport Beach and Orange County leaders asked the federal government for $14 million in the 2008 fiscal year, which would be enough to finish the project. But in July, the Senate only put $4 million for the Back Bay in a water appropriations bill — four times what the House put in its bill, and when the two are reconciled, the Senate amount will be the upper limit.

The effect of the funding shrinkage could be that the project takes longer, potentially inconveniencing people who live near where the dredging equipment is working, Newport Beach Assistant City Manager Dave Kiff said.

The work started in April 2006 and was expected to take two and a half years. About 700 cubic yards have been dug out, of the 2.1 million cubic yards planned for removal.

“The worst case is that we have to pull the plug and the project isn’t done to the specifications that it was originally supposed to be done,” Kiff said.

Delaying the project also could drive up costs, and Kiff said it could put local agencies, including the city, on the hook to pay for the dredging. That’s because they’re required to reduce the amount of sediment going into the ocean, and the dredging would help meet that standard.

While the project won’t get full funding in the 2008 fiscal year, which begins in October, officials still can try for more money in 2009 appropriations bills, Orange County senior coastal engineer Susan Brodeur said.

Because officials used local grant funds at the beginning of the project and federal funds for the 2007 fiscal year haven’t been spent, work can continue through September 2008, she said.

But if more money doesn’t come through by 2009, she said, “we would have to demobilize and wait until the rest of the federal funds come in.”