Exploring ideas to keep funds flowing

Upper Newport Bay dredging stakeholders will meet today to discuss what can be done to keep contractors in town as funding for the project dwindles.

The Newport Bay Watershed Executive Committee will meet at 3 p.m. at the Irvine Ranch Water District, where Orange County coastal engineer Susan Brodeur will give a presentation on the restoration project and funding alternatives, including asking property owners to help pay the tab.

The contractor in charge of the dredging is scheduled to be finished with work in September. At that time it will take additional funds to keep the contractor around, Brodeur said. But finding those funds hasn’t been easy. The federal government hasn’t been any help, which has left the county scrambling for money to cover the about $20 million needed to pay for the second phase of the project.

Rep. John Campbell has been avidly opposed to earmarking the money for the project — he is a strong opponent of earmarks in general — and that position has made it difficult for federal money to get through for the project.

“My position has been clear for sometime. I am not requesting any earmarks for any purpose until we reform this corrupt and wasteful process,” Campbell said.

Campbell added that a new budget probably won’t happen until after a new president is sworn in, so despite his position no bill with an earmark is going to get through with or without him.

“And if that new president is John McCain, he has made it very clear he will not sign any bill with a single earmark in it,” Campbell said. “I think those local officials should figure out a plan B, that is very likely to be a plan A, for funds.”

There may be about $1.4 million left over from the first phase of the dredging project, allowing work to continue for about another month, Brodeur said. But after that, the path gets a little murky.

If Congress does not approve a budget, it usually gives agencies some guidance on how to continue a spending plan to get things funded, Brodeur said. Historically, that guidance includes allowing an agency to spend up to the lower amount of the two bills presented in Congress, she said. In this case, the lower amount would be the $2 million being asked for in the House of Representatives bill.

The county won’t find out about that until the beginning of October — just past when the contractors are supposed to be finished.

With the money from Congress not a guarantee, the only real fallback the county has is the leftover funds. The goal is to try to extend the project until February — after a new president is sworn in — in order to have a chance at more federal funding.

If the contractors’ work can’t be extended, they would be forced to leave, and bringing them back later for work would cost more. In order to keep the work in Newport Beach, it may take help from those involved in the Watershed agreement — property owners who have sediment in the bay.

“I think the stakeholders need to ante up,” Newport Beach Councilwoman Nancy Gardner said. “From talking to Rep. John Campbell, it doesn’t seem very likely any help is going to come until after the election. We keep looking for other sources, but they don’t seem to be there.”

The stakeholders she speaks of are Orange County, Tustin, Lake Forest, Irvine, the Irvine Company and Newport Beach. Out of those, Gardner said, Lake Forest might be the most inclined to support the position that each property owner pitch in some funds, but it might be more difficult convincing the others.

“It may be that we don’t put the money in now, but maybe it gets down to the next year and it costs more and we are still on the hook,” Gardner said. “Why not bite the bullet now and save us money in the long run, perhaps?”

Gardner, who will represent Newport Beach at the meeting, hopes the meeting will produce some legitimate plans rather than another turn to Washington or the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for potential help.

“I would hope we would have a clear path with real possibilities,” she said. “Some real concrete, not pie-in-the-sky hopes.”

As for funding after this year, Brodeur said the county has applied for three separate grants from the U.S. Fish and Wild Life Service, the Wildlife Conservation Board and the Environmental Protection Agency. Those grants could supply the project with $1 million to about $6 million in funds, but the drawback is the help probably wouldn’t come until spring.

DANIEL TEDFORD may be reached at (714) 966-4632 or at daniel.tedford@latimes.com.