Seawall Project Scaled Back

Faced with severe budget problems, Los Angeles County officials have shelved plans to replace much of the seawall lining Marina del Rey harbor in favor of a less costly program to simply hold the existing wall in place.

County officials estimated that it could cost as much as $66 million to replace or retrofit the entire seven miles of seawall around the marina. The project became a priority after three of the seawall’s massive concrete panels collapsed and plunged into the harbor five years ago.

But with the state and county experiencing severe fiscal problems, members of the county Small Craft Harbor Commission were told Wednesday that the seawall project has been scaled back to $18.5 million.

“We obviously cannot afford the super-deluxe Cadillac design,” said Larry Charness, planning chief for the county Department of Beaches and Harbors.

Experts estimated that a new seawall would last 50 years. Of the existing seawall with the scaled-down repairs, Charness said, “I can’t tell you how long it will last.”

The 1987 collapse was caused by saltwater that penetrated deep into the concrete and rusted the steel reinforcing bars. A later examination found that corrosion was so serious that all 660 of the concrete panels in the marina needed replacement or retrofitting.

But that approach has been dropped as the county’s financial problems have worsened. “Realistically, there wasn’t any way we were going to come up with that,” said Ted Reed, director of the Department of Beaches and Harbors.

Instead, the county is counting on low-interest loans from the state Department of Boating and Waterways to finance the scaled-down project to brace the wall and install metal plates to draw the corrosion.