Long Beach OKs $2.5 Million to Reopen a Key Waterway : Harbors: Funds will be used to dredge Queensway Bay, clogged by material dumped during the recent storms. Its virtual closure has reduced traffic to Catalina, hurting the island’s economy.

The Long Beach City Council approved spending $2.5 million Tuesday to help open a small harbor that was shut down by the recent storms, leaving businesses on Catalina Island suffering from the resulting loss of the tourist trade.

Recent rains dumped tons of silt, sand and debris at the mouth of the Los Angeles River, cutting off all shipping out of Queensway Landing near downtown Long Beach and closing a key ocean link between the mainland and Catalina Island.

Catalina Cruises, which runs ferries and whale-watching cruises out of Queensway Landing, suspended operations after one of its three 700-passenger boats ran aground Jan. 11 as it left the harbor.

Avalon City Manager Robert F. Clark said Catalina Island hotels are reporting numerous cancellations because people cannot get across the channel.

“That’s reverberating through the entire island,” he said. “If people don’t stay in our hotels, they don’t eat in our restaurants or shop in our stores.”

The Long Beach council offered some relief Tuesday, approving a $2.5-million emergency contract with a dredging company to reopen the waterway. RB & Associates will be working around the clock to remove and haul away 100,000 cubic yards of material from Queensway Bay.

But the work may not get under way for several days and could take at least three weeks to complete, City Manager James Hankla said.

The river, which passes downtown Long Beach and the Queen Mary before flowing into Long Beach Harbor, was in serious need of dredging even before the fierce storms hit the Southland this month. The Army Corps of Engineers had been gearing up to remove 310,000 cubic yards of silt from the channel. The work would have cleared the channel--which was 10 feet deep before the storms--to a depth of 20 feet.

Some ships are now prevented from leaving or entering Queensway Landing except during very high tides, said Dennis Eschen, superintendent of parks planning and development in the city’s Parks, Recreation & Marine Department.

Catalina Cruises managed to get two of its 700-passenger ships, which sit eight feet in the water, out of the harbor during high tides. Two of the company’s ships--a 700-passenger ferry and a 150-passenger vessel--remain trapped.

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The state Department of Fish & Game was able to get two of its ships out of Queensway Landing during high tide, Eschen said.

Catalina Cruises is keeping its two freed ships at its dock in another part of Long Beach Harbor, but that dock is not suitable for loading and unloading passengers, said Al Zurawski, vice president of passenger services for Oakland-based Crowley Marine Corp., Catalina Cruises’ parent company.

The company is working with Long Beach officials to find a temporary passenger terminal to allow it to resume service before Queensway Landing is reopened, Zurawski said.

Catalina Cruises could lose $250,000 in revenue because of the closure. In addition, 50 of its employees have been temporarily laid off, he said.

The closure of Queensway Landing, which last happened in 1980, could not have come at a worse time because the whale-watching season--the company’s main business each winter--had just started, Zurawski said.

Catalina Cruises was not the only company affected by the storms. Catalina Express, which ferries people to Avalon from Long Beach and San Pedro, was forced to shift all of its ships to San Pedro because of a huge amount of floating debris in Long Beach Harbor. The company plans to resume service out of its terminal near the Queen Mary on Friday.

One Long Beach councilman, Jerry Shultz, expressed anger about the emergency dredging expense.

“It’s outrageous for our taxpayers to foot the bill for this,” he said, adding that cities upstream should help pay.

But Hankla said the city will be reimbursed by the federal government because the county has been declared a disaster area.