SEAL BEACH : Hearing Is Tonight on Navy’s Jetty Plan

The Navy will give the public a chance to speak out tonight on a proposal to build a $200-million expansion of its port facilities at the Seal Beach Naval Weapons Station. A public hearing in Long Beach will mark the first step in preparing an environmental impact statement for the proposal, which has already attracted opposition.

An unlikely coalition of environmentalists, peace activists, wealthy homeowners, surfers and local merchants has banded together to fight the project, which by 1997 would enable large warships to load and unload ammunition onto a new, 4,000-foot extension of Anaheim Bay’s east jetty.

Currently, ships too large to navigate in Anaheim Bay, the waterway between Seal Beach and Huntington Harbour, anchor three miles offshore and wait for small barges to transport their munitions to and from the base.

Over the weekend, opponents of the proposal distributed 6,000 leaflets printed by Greenpeace to alert residents of Seal Beach and Huntington Beach to the project’s potential impact on local beaches, said Gordon Labedz, a Seal Beach resident who has been organizing efforts to fight the proposal. About 10,000 more leaflets printed by the Surfrider Foundation, a Huntington Beach-based environmental group, will go out over Labor Day weekend.

“Our goal is to bring all these different people together. We want to nip this in the bud,” Labedz said of the proposal, which has not yet been placed in the Navy’s budget and could be years away from receiving federal approval.

U.S. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Long Beach) said at the Seal Beach City Council meeting Monday night that he is “leaning heavily against” the wharf project.

Opponents of the proposal say that the jetty extension would all but eliminate surf action on Surfside and Sunset beaches and turn the area into a protected bay.

This would drive away beach visitors and hurt local businesses, said Richard Harbour, owner of Harbour Surfboards in Seal Beach. “Merchants are going to starve on this and surf shops will be hit the worst,” he added.

The sight of huge warships sitting a mile off Surfside Beach tied up to a jumble of wharfs and jetties will bring down property values, contended Joyce Ross, a sales agent with CBS Realty.

“It will be like a shipyard out there,” she said. “It will definitely affect real estate prices. If we’re trying to get $2 million for a house, we’d be lucky to get a million.”

Navy spokesman Tom Thomas said the purpose of tonight’s hearing is to allow public participation in setting the agenda for a study of the project’s potential impact on the environment.

“Every issue that’s brought up will be addressed in the environmental impact statement,” he said, adding that written comments will be accepted by the Navy until Sept. 7.

The meeting will begin at 7 p.m. at the Long Beach Sheraton, 333 E. Ocean Blvd.