Heading for a sedimental journey

Newport Beach may have found somewhere to get rid of the harbor’s contaminated sediment besides its own backyard.

On Tuesday night, the City Council approved an amended agreement with the dredging project company to look into moving the Rhine Channel’s underwater toxic sediment to the Port of Long Beach, where it could be used as landfill.

The Port of Long Beach is undergoing its own massive project, and a part of that is the 10-year, $750-million Middle Harbor Redevelopment Project on two of its aging shipping terminals.

The port is looking to fill 54 acres of water between two shipping terminals to create one huge wharf.

Newport Beach, meanwhile, is looking for somewhere to dump in excess of 100,000 cubic yards of toxic sediment from the Rhine Channel and 1 million cubic yards from the entrance channel.

City officials said a portion of the 1 million cubic yards from the entrance channel can be disposed off-shore, but most of it is too toxic by federal standards.

Until this opportunity arose, the Harbor Commission was focusing its efforts to get rid of the toxic soil on Confined Aquatic Disposal.

The term is a technical way of saying workers would find a clean part of the harbor, dig a big hole, dump in the toxic sediment, then cover it back up with clean sand, trapping it.

The city has two proposed locations for the contractor, Anchor QEA L.P., to dig holes and fill them up with the toxic sediment.

That method, however, poses another issue. What to do with all the clean soil being dug up?

Aquatic QEA is researching disposing of it in the ocean through an overland pipeline that would run across the Balboa Peninsula.

The city has until June to develop plans for disposing its toxic sediment in the Port of Long Beach, according to the port’s own development timeline.

Newport Beach is paying Aquatic QEA an extra $50,000 to research the option, bringing its total contract with the city to $445,000.