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/
The Newport Beach City Council approved an agreement with a firm for federal advocacy services related to harbor dredging efforts and programs, Feb. 27. Carpi & Clay was retained to represent Newport Beach at the federal level in hopes the firm would help bring the city’s issues to the forefront when it comes to harbor dredging.
“The city has been actively working with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers … and to a limited extent, federal elected representatives, to present and educate them on our dredging needs in Newport Harbor, as well as to get our project on the Corps’ upcoming project funding list,” city staff told council members in a report. “Keeping our project in focus and on the recommended funding list of both the Corps and the many elected representatives that need to review and approve it is, and continues to be, a significant challenge particularly because we do not have a presence in Washington, D.C.”
An Army Corps study in 2017 revealed there is about 650,000 cubic yards of sediment remaining in federal waters and must be dredged to “maintain adequate navigation.”
By Devon Warren
Inventor of the electric Duffy boat addresses his plans to improve the Newport Beach Harbor as city’s new mayor.
NEWPORT BEACH — In the efforts to track down Marshall “Duffy” Duffield, the new mayor of Newport Beach, it seemed quite ominous his reply to an email correspondence about scheduling an interview stated, “I’m around,” with his phone number attached.
The Duffy name is certainly “around” in many corners of Newport Beach Harbor, as it’s literally everywhere you turn – in the form of a “Duffy” electric boat.
As a long-time Newport Beach resident (more than 50 years) and the inventor of the electric boat bearing his name, many of us would consider Duffield the quintessential image of the dreamy Southern California yachting life.
A car insurance agent once told me we pay such catastrophic prices because “it’s a privilege to live” in Southern California. In a lot of ways, Duffield has taken such privilege and created an empire from it – him, and most other residents of California’s coast, live in a Technicolor world of scenic beauty that others across the country may never see in their lifetimes.
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