After hearing from local environmental teams opposing its structure, the Coastal Commission on Friday approved an application filed through the City of Newport Beach for the structure of a confined water waste disposal site, known as CAD, in Newport Harbor.
The purpose of the DAC is to involve sediments that are not discharged into the ocean. The city had been contemplating locating it at the rear of Newport Harbor since 2019.
Commissioner Matt O’Malley was the only vote against the project, which was considered the last day of October’s Coastal Commission meetings in San Diego. O’Malley said he thought some of the analyses chosen were “quite superficial. “”Data that appears where the embankment would come from once the CAD excavated incomplete,” he said.
“As far as I know, this has only been known through very general statements about the expected quality of the nature of the embankment, we don’t know where it is and it doesn’t seem to go through some other independent environment. review,” O’Malley said.
He said that if the embankment came from the outside, it would have to be dredged, transported by barge and trucked to the domain, an option he didn’t like for its removal in the first place. He also expressed his fear about the possibility of resuspension of infected people. team.
Newport Harbour, one of the largest marinas in the country, wants normal dredging to remove sediment that would otherwise interfere with boats’ navigation. It was partially dredged for the last time in 2012-2013. Mercury-contaminated sediments had already been found in the port, near the avoidance basin and the Lido peninsula.
The hollow is expected to measure approximately 590 feet to 590 feet and will have the capacity to house approximately 112,500 cubic yards of dredging curtains from the federal canals that supply the Port of Newport. As proposed, it will also have enough area for another 50,000 cubic meters of regime curtains dredging those open-air channels.
The municipality submitted the application to the Coastal Commission for this provision in May 2021.
The city showed the Coastal Commission that there were at least 65 opportunities, through public hearings, press releases and other means of outreach, for citizens to raise their considerations about the project.
Tech mogul and Newport Beach resident Palmer Luckey put forward several ideas of choice, the maxim of which was to place the infected curtains on Lower Castaways.
This proposal was not approved by city staff, who said hitting this volume of sediment in the Castaways decline would cover the beach “pocket-sized” at a height residents would find unacceptable.
Coastal Commission staff agreed with Newport Beach’s claim. Both staff members agreed that Luckey’s proposal would not only have a negative effect on public access to shoreline, but could also adversely affect waterline habitat.
The Newport Harbor friends showed up early Friday morning before commissioners met to oppose the project. Wearing blue T-shirts calling on the Coastal Commission to “save the bay,” protesters carried signs reading “CAD is bad,” “Save our bays” and “No spills in the port. “
The organization had protested in the past at Newport Beach City Council meetings in September and as recently as Tuesday, hoping that council members would withdraw the plans. No such action has been taken.
Members of the organization, first led by Luckey, then based their hopes on the Coastal Commission rejecting the DAC on environmental and public protection grounds.
At Friday’s hearing, OC Coastkeeper members voiced their objections to the plan. Associate director of systems Ray Hiemstra said the organization had “significant concerns” about the project. Hiemstra described the sediment as “erroneously classified as harmless” in the city.
Hiemstra also said his organization is involved in the sufficiency of a 1-foot transient sand roof that will be placed on the CAD for two years.
The arguments of the Friends of the Port of Newport those fears.
The commissioners asked questions of both him and the city of Newport Beach. They also turned to Anchor QEA, the company that prepared models to verify the structure’s effects on water quality, to address those concerns.
O’Malley and Commissioner Dayna Bochco asked if there were good enough tests, whether all tests were conducted in accordance with federal requirements, and what the effects of those tests were.
Newport Beach Public Works Director Chris Miller told commissioners that the sediment contained in the DAC would be toxic.
“The EPA has informed us that it is not poisonous or threatening and can remain in place,” Miller said. “It’s poisonous or dangerous. “
Commissioner Linda Escalante said she understood the speakers were involved in environmental impacts, but that they had been “lost” when they used the communities adjacent to the Port of Los Angeles and Long Beach as examples of where those types of fabrics would be buried, rather than Newport. . Port.
Escalante described it as a “fundamental environmental injustice” and said she had recreational use, but that sailing was a form of access that only the wealthy can afford.
O’Malley and Commissioner Steve Padilla agreed, Padilla said the investigation and evidence were enough to help the commission’s staff council approve the project.
In a statement released after the commission approved the project, Shana Conzelman, volunteer outreach director for the Friends of the Port of Newport network, said all her organization was looking for Friday was for commissioners to “ask the city to back off and take the proper samples.
“The port of Newport is Array. . . used by other people from all over the region, the whole state and the whole world. People fish in the harbor to eat. We looked at all the fabrics in the city and they just didn’t adhere to the testing guidelines,” Conzelman said. “The city plans to take sediments containing DDT, PCBs and incredibly high levels of mercury and discharge them into the port. It’s too risky a bet.
“This is a cleansing; it’s a blanket. It’s like taking the worst of the worst fabrics and sweeping it under the rug.
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Lilly Nguyen covers Newport Beach for the Daily Pilot. Prior to joining the pilot program, she worked for the Orange County Registry as a freelance journalist and intern. She earned her bachelor’s degree in journalism from Cal State Long Beach. (714) 966-4623 .
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