Harbor Gets Money for Safety Plan : Ventura: President Bush signs bill appropriating $500,000 toward the $6.5-million entryway project.

A 10-year-old construction project to improve the Ventura Harbor entrance is finally about to become a reality, officials said Wednesday.

After spending more than $1 million on studies that have lasted about a decade, Ventura Harbor officials last week received federal funds to make the harbor safer and reduce dredging costs.

“The harbor has always been plagued with a dangerous entrance,” said Richard Parsons, general manager of the Ventura Port District. “Harbors are intended to be a safe haven for boats. How good is your harbor if your entrance is dangerous?”

Ventura Harbor is notorious for having the most perilous entry in Southern California, Parsons said, and improving it will boost the harbor’s economy.

A study by the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers estimated that commercial fishermen lost about $500,000 a year because hazardous waves about 110 days a year prevent vessels from entering or leaving the harbor. More than 60 boats have been capsized or damaged since 1982, the report says.

Plans are under way to extend the north jetty and the detached breakwater by 300 feet. Officials also want to build a 650-foot groin, on the beach south of the harbor, which local surfers are protesting. Both the jetty extension and the groin will be made of rocks.

Construction won’t begin until next summer, but harbor officials said they are happy that some of the money has been granted for the project this year. President Bush signed a bill last week that will appropriate $500,000 toward the $6.5-million project, and officials said they hope to receive the rest of the money next year.

Although Ventura Harbor is owned and managed by the Ventura Port District, the existing north and south jetties at its entrance are designated federal projects requiring federal funding, Parsons said.

Pete Dupuy, a commercial fisherman who has been operating out of the harbor for about 10 years, said he is looking forward to the improvements.

“Some winters, it can be extremely dangerous,” said Dupuy, who has lost some working days because of hazardous conditions at the entrance. “It will help us in that we won’t lose as much time as far as working.”

The project will also save the harbor millions of dollars in dredging costs because dredging will only have to be done every two years instead of every year, Parsons said.

The harbor has been dredged every year since it was built in 1963, officials said. It costs about $1.1 million annually to move about 1.62 million cubic yards of sand trapped in the entrance channel, said Richard Hambleton, chairman of the Ventura Port Commission.

After the extensions are constructed, and the south beach groin is added, it will only be necessary to dredge every two years, Hambleton said.

Members of the Surfrider Foundation--a group of ecologically minded surfers--say the dredging cost, not safety concerns, is the primary motivation behind the project.

Local surfers have protested the project from the beginning, and are particularly upset about the proposed south beach groin, which they say will cause beach erosion and wipe out a first-rate surfing area.

“When you build something that obstructs sand, you’re robbing another beach of that sand,” said Rex Thomas, president of the local chapter of Surfrider Foundation.

One victim will be the Oxnard beaches, said Matthew Wingar, a city planner. The Oxnard shores get most of their sand from the sediment that is dredged annually at the Ventura Harbor and placed at the river mouth of the Santa Clara River, Wingar said. If dredging switches to a biennial cycle, then sand will be held up for an extra year, he said.

Such beach erosion would mean dangerous waves breaking up and down the coast within a few miles of the groin, Thomas said. “We agree there is a safety issue, but we don’t feel the south beach groin is necessary.”

Scott Jenkins, Surfrider’s environmental director, said no one has properly studied the environmental impact that the groin will have.

“No one knows what it’s really going to do,” Jenkins said. “It’s a giant experiment.”

Jenkins, who works as a coastal engineer at Scripps Institute of Oceanography, said he examined a model of the project and found it deficient. “Two rows of pebbles” were used to represent the 650-foot rock groin, which is insufficient to determine the impact it will have, Jenkins said.

Jenkins maintains that the project can be done without the south beach groin, and he criticized the Corps of Engineers for preparing the environmental assessment report on its own project, saying it was a “huge conflict of interest.”

In a prepared statement, the Corps of Engineers defended its findings:

“The groin is essential to improving the harbor entrance by stopping the migration of sand (from the southerly direction) from filling in the harbor entrance.”

Although most sand comes into the harbor from the north, Parsons said the south beach groin is still needed for sediment that is swept in from the south.

“The California Coastal Commission bought off on it,” Parsons said. “It’s been through all the review processes. People say the corps was biased. How did it get through all those other agencies then?”

When the south beach groin is constructed, it will also ruin one of the best surfing spots in Ventura County, Thomas said.

National surfing competitions are regularly held south of the harbor “because this place is reliable for waves,” Thomas said. Waves can reach as high as 10 to 15 feet, and on a good day, about 100 to 200 people use the area, he said.

The groin will change the contour of the coastline, which will affect how the waves break on the beach, Thomas said.

He added: “Whenever you’re doing anything that interferes with Mother Nature, it’s going to have an impact in a negative way.”

Ventura Harbor Ventura Harbor officials want toe xtend the existing north jetty and the detached breakwater by 300 feet to improve safety and reduce dredging costs. Officials also plan to construct a 650-feet groin on the beach south of the harbor. Opponents say the groin will cause beach erosion and destroy a prime surfing spot.