A plan to dig an underwater pit the size of six football fields at the bottom of Newport Harbor and bury contaminated soil there is on hold, for now, pending a second look at environmental studies.
Amid multiple legal challenges over that proposal, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has suspended a permit it gave the city of Newport Beach for the project earlier this year. The agency also has committed to conduct additional analysis on the potential effects of the planned pit, spokesperson Stephen Baack said Tuesday.
In exchange, the nonprofit group Orange County Coastkeeper and a group of area residents known as Friends of Newport Harbor have agreed to pause their lawsuits against the agency.
The neighborhood group “is pleased that the Army Corps of Engineers is concerned about human health and the environment and responded to our plea for a revised environmental analysis,” organization president Shana Conzelman said.
The Army Corps doesn’t yet have an estimate for how long those studies will take, Baack said. That means there’s no clear timeline now for when overdue work to dredge the harbor and clear the way for boat traffic, which was supposed to kick off last fall, might happen or where any contaminated soil crews dig up might go if the underwater pit is ruled out as an option.
A progress report on that process is due in six months, according to a July 13 order from U.S. District Judge David Carter.
These plans have been in the works for nearly five years. And they’ve already cost the city, which recently filed to be an intervener in the Army Corps case, more than $2 million.
The federal government manages Newport Harbor and occasionally dredges accumulated sand and other debris from navigational channels that could otherwise pose problems for the more than 10,000 vessels based there. The last time most of the harbor was dredged was more than a decade ago. So early last year the Army Corps received permits to clear 879,900 cubic yards of material from the harbor.
Most of that sediment can be hauled out to sea and released at designated spots, miles offshore, or used to replenish eroded stretches of the coast. However, sample testing showed some 112,500 cubic yards of that sediment has elevated levels of mercury and industrial chemicals such as DDT.
Federal laws say contaminated material can’t be dropped in the open ocean. So, while the Army Corps will still dredge it up, the agency relies on local governments to devise and secure permits for storage solutions.
With no port or landfill space available, Newport Beach’s proposed solution is to dig a hole 590 feet wide, 590 feet long and 46 feet deep in the center of the lower harbor, directly between Bay Island, Lido Isle and Harbor Island. That would create what is termed a confined aquatic disposal pit, or CAD. Crews then would take contaminated sediment from the channels, drop it in the 8-acre pit and cover it with a layer of clean sand 20 feet below the surface.
Environmental groups and Friends of Newport Harbor — led by tech mogul Palmer Luckey, who owns a home near the proposed site — have opposed the CAD plan from the start. Instead, they’ve proposed alternatives such as hauling the sediment to land, where it can be contained and even used to build seawalls and other features.
If the sediment is kept at the bottom of the harbor, these groups say they worry about having only a layer of sand between contaminated sediment and boat anchors in waters people use for recreation and that animals, including endangered green sea turtles, depend on for habitat.
They’ve also flagged how plumes of sediment might contaminate surrounding waters as the material is dumped into the pit.
In their lawsuits against the Army Corps, both Coastkeeper and the harbor friends group argued the agency shouldn’t have relied on environmental studies by Newport Beach, which they insist didn’t address all of these issues as required under federal law.
“Excavating contaminated sediments from one part of the bay and burying them in another part does nothing but kick the can down the road for the next generation to deal with,” said Brent Mardian, a marine scientist who’s been working with Friends of Newport Harbor.
Even worse, Mardian said experts his team has consulted with believe the CAD, which are setups typically used in industrial ports, will one day fail.
“The Newport Beach CAD would be the first ever approved for long-term contaminant storage of chemicals like mercury, PCBs and DDT next to public beaches and homes in an enclosed bay like Newport,” he said.
That makes it tough to find comparable examples of how a CAD like this might fare over time, though projects in industrial harbors have a pretty clean track record.
Asked about the latest news on the proposed pit, Chris Miller, a manager with Newport Beach’s Public Works department, deferred to the Army Corps for information. But he’s previously defended the city’s plan, noting that the city considered alternatives and followed the law when it came to all environmental reviews.
Friends of Newport Harbor still has an active lawsuit against the California Coastal Commission and the city of Newport Beach related to this project.
The commission approved its permit for the project Oct. 14 based on the city’s environmental studies, which the resident group argues also doesn’t comply with state laws. Commissioners, who voted 8-1 in favor of a permit for the project, said they trusted commission staff, who concluded that the project was the “least damaging feasible alternative” for getting rid of contaminated sediment in the area.
A hearing on that case is scheduled for Oct. 24.
Source: Orange County Register
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