President wants $1.8M for dredging

President Obama’s budget request includes about $1.8 million for Newport Beach to dredge its harbor.

Although it is the responsibility of the Army Corps of Engineers to keep the bay dredged in compliance with federal law, the corps hasn’t had any funding to do it since the 1930s, when the harbor was dedicated. As a result, silt buildup has made the harbor shallower to the point where it is not navigable for boats with deep keels.

The city recently scored $17 million in stimulus funding to finish dredging the Upper Newport Bay, which has been an ongoing project for the last few years, but this is the first time any money has been earmarked for the harbor.

The total cost of the project will probably be about $15 million to $17 million, said Assistant City Manager Dave Kiff, but the fact that funding is starting to flow shows the government is serious about getting it done.

“This is the first time we’ve seen the president come out with a number other than zero for this project, which is tremendous,” Kiff said.

The Upper Bay and harbor dredgings are fundamentally different, but related because the two bodies of water are connected. The Upper Bay dredging is a one-time operation to restore the ecosystem while the harbor dredging is a continual responsibility to allow boats the ability to pass through.

Once silt accumulates in the Upper Bay, though, it starts to trickle down toward the harbor, Kiff said.

Councilwoman Leslie Daigle went with Kiff to Washington, D.C., to lobby for funding for both projects. Daigle stressed that investing in the harbor was not just good for the local environment, but also for industries that revolve around the harbor.

“Basically if you have silt accumulating and the resource is deteriorating over time, if that continues, then you’re going to strangle many of the economic uses that you have when the bay is clean and navigable,” she said.

Dredging the harbor will probably take one year to 18 months to complete, but in some ways it will be more complicated than the Upper Bay dredging because much of the silt is contaminated with toxins, Kiff said.

The toxic material can’t just be scooped up and dumped off shore, which is the process for disposing of cleaner silt, so the city plans on constructing an underwater vault called a confined aquatic disposal site in the harbor to dump it into. A deep hole will be dug, the contaminated material will be dropped into it, and then it will be covered by clean material.

The project could start as early as October or as late as fall 2010, according to Kiff.