SCUBA Divers Make an Eco-Splash at the Newport Harbor Underwater Cleanup Sept. 21
By Guest Contributor – September 26, 2024
Source: Newport Beach Independent https://www.newportbeachindy.com/scuba-divers-make-an-eco-splash-at-the-newport-harbor-underwater-cleanup-sept-21/
By Spencer Grant | Special to the NB Indy
It’s surprising what you can find at the bottom of Newport Harbor.
Bicycles, toolboxes, traffic cones, even a boat. There’s lots of plastic and things that have fallen off boats—not that boaters are dumping stuff deliberately; they just wind up in the harbor.
On one memorable occasion, a diver found a gun. “We informed the police and they said don’t touch it,” explained boatman Guy Harden. “Two divers stayed there until the police showed up, saying the gun was part of an investigation. We never heard anything about it after that, sorry to say.”
Newport Harbor got an aquatic boost on Saturday, Sept. 21 after the fourth annual Newport Harbor Underwater Cleanup arrived at Marina Park on Balboa Peninsula to seek out and collect underwater trash.
Around 60 SCUBA divers and 125 “above-water” volunteers answered the call to make the bottom of the harbor a cleaner place. The event was part of the larger Coastal Cleanup Day along the OC shore.
Explained dive safety officer David Mansfield, “There’ll be divers on multiple boats all over Newport Harbor plus others diving off the beaches. Then there are the above-water people: their job is to clean the beaches and beach heads.
And all trash isn’t of equal importance.
“I’ve personally collected up to 10 pounds, but the entire event collects hundreds of pounds,” said diver Amy Meier. “Some of the most important stuff doesn’t weigh very much: plastic scraps that get eaten and become part of the food chain. They look like sea life, so if you can see them and get them out of the water before they break down any further and get eaten, that makes a difference. A beer bottle in the ocean doesn’t do much harm but plastic does.”
The cleanup began at 9 a.m. as a dozen boats loaded up with divers and headed for prechosen spots in the harbor, each diver equipped with a mesh collecting bag. While the subaquatic searching was random in some places, other target areas had been scoped out a week before, yielding a bigger return on the divers’ efforts.
The harbor is no more than 20 feet deep, meaning that divers had to avoid passing boats whose propellers would stir up sediment and obscure vision. In addition, the divers wore powerful flashlights on their wrists and were careful not to stir up sediment with their foot-long flippers.
Wearing SCUBA outfits costing anywhere from $2,500 to $10,000, the volunteer divers expressed their commitment to the project.
“It’s a new experience and we expect to find all sorts of stuff,” said diver Claire Brown. “We love the ocean and want to give back some of the joy we get from it. We know other people do too.”
Noelle Daniels echoed the sentiment: “The ocean brings me so much peace and joy. It’s my way of giving back and taking care of the ocean. I love the ocean, and a lot of people don’t realize how much trash there is out there. We need the ocean to have everything on earth.”
By 11 a.m., the dive boats were returning to Marina Park with their loads of recovered refuse. After being unloaded on the pier, the trash was piled on a boat owned by Apex Diving who in turn transferred it to a CR&R. dumpster for final disposal.
David Mansfield pronounced it a good haul.
“We didn’t get the big stuff this year but we got plenty all the same. I’m grateful to the volunteers who made it such a successful event.”
By Guest Contributor – September 26, 2024
Source: Newport Beach Independent https://www.newportbeachindy.com/scuba-divers-make-an-eco-splash-at-the-newport-harbor-underwater-cleanup-sept-21/
By Laylan Connelly – Orange County Register
Officials have secured $8.3 million to dredge Newport Harbor in the $14 billion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, but sand replenishment projects for two stretches of Orange County coastline were not included.
U.S. Rep. Michelle Steel said dredging of Newport Beach’s harbor is long overdue in her announcement Wednesday, Jan. 19, about the federal funding, but also stressed the need for added sand along the coastline. Funding for the Surfside-Sunset Replenishment Project, which would seed beaches through Huntington Beach south to Newport Beach will have to hope for final approval from another Congressional appropriations bill, the timeline of which has been unclear.
So is the San Clemente Shoreline Project, which would replenish beaches in the southern city, including improving the buffer of shoreline along a key coastal rail line.
Both projects have been stalled for years, awaiting funding for U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to do the replenishments that help create a beach buffer that would protect roads, homes and infrastructure from ocean flooding, as well as keep beaches – one of the region’s major tourism draws – from disappearing.
In 1962, Congress passed the Rivers and Harbors Act, which required the Army Corps of Engineers to address the impacts of the constructed flood control structures on the sand deposits that should be happening naturally along shorelines.
The $23 million Surfside-Sunset project – $15.5 million in federal money and $7.63 from local agencies – would add 1.75 million cubic yards of sand to Surfside, which would then be pushed down the coast by ocean currents and waves, spreading it 12 miles south to Newport Beach.
The last time sand was added was 2010 – previously the replenishment happened every five to seven years.
“There is more work to do, and I will continue to demand action from the administration and the Army Corps to fully fund the Surfside-Sunset Replenishment Project because we are one natural disaster away from devastation,” Steel said in a statement.
San Clemente has been waiting about two decades for its big replenishment project. The city two years ago received a boost in the amount of $500,000 in federal funding for the design phase.
With no beach left, a wave crashes against the rocks and stairs just below the railroad tracks at North Beach in San Clemente on Wednesday, October 20, 2021.(Photo by Mark Rightmire, Orange County Register/SCNG)
The project would add 251,000 cubic yards of sand from Linda Lane beach to T-Street beach south of the pier. The sand has shrunk so much there in recent years, city leaders have discussed the possibly of moving San Clemente’s Marine Safety Headquarters off the beach. When big surf hits, the surf laps onto the railroad tracks.
About $9.3 million was requested in the bipartisan infrastructure bill by U.S. Rep. Mike Levin for the San Clemente Shoreline Project.
Levin helped secure $30.5 million in federal funding for the Encinitas-Solana Beach Coastal Storm Damage Reduction Project and $1.8 million for the Oceanside Special Shoreline Study, his office announced Wednesday.
The Encinitas-Solana Beach project involves placing 700,000 cubic yards of sand along 7,200 feet of beach in Solana Beach and 340,000 cubic yards of sand along 7,800 feet of beach in Encinitas.
The Oceanside shoreline study will create a plan to mitigate erosion and other effects from the construction of Camp Pendleton Harbor and will restore beach conditions along the affected shores to the conditions that existed before its development.
Levin’s office said he is also “continuing to fight to finalize federal funding for the San Clemente Shoreline Project.”
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