So Much for Sediment : County, Federal Agencies Will Join Forces to Dredge Channel That Leads Into Marina del Rey

Los Angeles County and the Army Corps of Engineers announced Thursday that together they will fund a dredging project in Marina del Rey to clear a silt-choked waterway that leads from the marina to the ocean.

At a cost of $1.25 million, about 360,000 tons of sediment that has built up in the marina’s entrance channel is to be scooped out, much of it silt carried down the coast or from Ballona Creek to the channel during storms. The dredged material will end up on nearby Dockweiler Beach.

Although the dredging will help the situation, it will not clear out all of the sediment and part of the channel will remain impassable.

Rep. Jane Harman (D-Rolling Hills), instrumental in securing the funding from the Army Corps of Engineers, made the announcement during a news conference aboard a boat touring the site of the dredging project.

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The dredging is scheduled to start in late March if the Coastal Commission gives permission, as expected. The work must be completed by April 15 to avoid disturbing the nesting season of the least tern, an endangered bird that nests on nearby beaches.

Because of the sediment, water along the sides of the channel has become too shallow for boat travel. The water is less than 10 feet deep in some places, forcing vessels to travel only in the center of the waterway.

Depending on tides, there is sometimes only enough room for two boats to pass each other. Last year, the Harbor Patrol responded to 20 groundings in the channel.

“There is a clear and present danger to life and property there,” said Charles Dwyer, operations chief of the corps’ Los Angeles district. “Lives could be lost.”

Marina del Rey is the docking site for more than 6,000 boats, and during the busy summer months at least 2,000 vessels sail daily along the entrance channel. The marina also is the staging area for Los Angeles International Airport’s air-sea rescue fleet, which responds to plane crashes and other emergencies.

The planned dredging project is the first major one for the waterway since 1981. Another such project will be needed in about three years, with others every four or five years after that, said Stan Wisniewski, director of the county’s Department of Beaches and Harbors. Smaller dredging projects were undertaken several times along the channel in the 1980s, but they have had little effect on the sediment buildup.

Only one dredging project has been undertaken since the corps discovered in 1991 that sediment in some areas of the channel is contaminated with lead and other pollutants. The areas are not part of the project that is to begin next month. Tests on that sediment have confirmed that it contains no contamination, Wisniewski said.

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The corps removed some of the contaminated sediment from the channel in 1994. But a great deal more polluted material still remains.

The Beaches and Harbors Department, the Corps of Engineers and others have been developing a long-term plan so that the channel can be dredged on a regular cycle. The first part of the plan will call for removal of the contaminated sediment and safe disposal of it, officials said.

The corps is hoping to have the plan in place before the entrance channel needs to be dredged again in three years, said Lt. Col. Jerome Dittman, deputy district commander of the corps. Meanwhile, the dredging that will begin next month is a step in the right direction.

“This buys us some time to get to the long-term solution,” said Roger Gorke, science and policy analyst with the environmental group Heal the Bay.