Navy Under Fire for San Diego Dredging Snafu

Ocean Beach. Nude Beach. Even Dog Beach. But Bullet Beach?

It seems that an unwanted byproduct of a plan to have the Navy dump sand dredged from San Diego Bay onto sand-deprived beaches has been to litter ammo hither and yon.

The ornery ordnance is stuff that was submerged for years at the entrance of the bay, possibly tossed overboard by World War II sailors and Marines more interested in rushing ashore for liberty than getting bogged down in a tedious inventory process.

The upshot is that a project once considered a win-win-win--the Navy dredges for its new nuclear carrier, cities are spared the expense of importing sand, and beach enthusiasts see nature get a boost--is now viewed as a no-no-no.

Dredging continues apace, but onshore dumping has been halted while civilian and military officials hunt for solutions. On the civilian side of the equation, patience is wearing thin.

Civic officials are grumbling that the Navy should halt the dredging until it can find a way to sift out the explosives. The Navy says it has to continue dredging to make way for the arrival of the nuclear carrier John C. Stennis in August.

“We’re watching the project go down the drain,” said San Diego Councilwoman Christine Kehoe. “The Coastal Commission’s hands are tied, and the Navy is not listening.”

The Navy insists that it is listening but that it would cost $75,000 a day in dredging fees to honor a request by the Coastal Commission to halt dredging while the bullet issue is resolved.

Instead, the Navy is opting to dump the dredged sand at sea five miles off Point Loma--to the chagrin of local officials who had thought that the plan was the answer to their sand prayers.

“We’ve had a worldwide search for technology that will help us out and have not found anything that is practical or feasible,” said Navy Capt. Tom Boothe, head of the San Diego-based division of the Naval Facilities Engineering Command, the branch that builds things, tears them down, and cleans them up for the Navy.

Last Thursday, Boothe issued an unusual public plea: If anybody has a way to sift the dredged material and still keep the project on time and roughly in budget, let us know.

As a practical matter, Boothe said, unless a solution is found this month, the sand replenishment project will probably be dead. The navigational channel will largely have been dredged of its 6.2 million cubic yards of sand, and the sand dumped in 600 feet of water, leaving local beaches and local officials increasingly stony.

Not long ago the plan was on track--after the Navy defeated a legal challenge by the Environmental Health Coalition worried about toxic material in the bay.

The plan was for the Navy to dredge the bay and then dump the sand on beaches at Oceanside, Carlsbad, Leucadia, Cardiff, Solana Beach, Del Mar/Torrey Pines and San Diego’s Mission Beach and Imperial Beach.

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Then Leucadia was rejected for fear that the dumping would hurt a budding reef. Solana Beach was eliminated to protect kelp.

But the worst blow came when dumping began at Oceanside, the first beach to get the sand.

An 81-millimeter mortar was found, then some 20-millimeter ammunition was found, date-stamped from World War II. A 20-millimeter round has approximately the explosive power of a hand grenade.

No one was hurt, but the incident recalled the horrific day in 1983 when two young San Diego boys were killed and a third injured after discovering an old artillery shell near their homes in Tierrasanta, the site of a World War II-era Army base.

The Navy installed screens on the dredge, but still ammunition found its way to Oceanside. Onshore dumping of the sand was halted, and the search for ways to save the project commenced.

The Coastal Commission has asked the state attorney general to seek an injunction forcing the Navy to halt the offshore dumping. So far, the attorney general has shown no eagerness to tangle with the federal government in court.

And how important is sand to beaches in San Diego and along the shore of northern San Diego County? Listen to how two suburban council members introduced themselves at a public gathering last week.

Council member 1: “I’m James Bond from Encinitas, and I’m looking for sand.”

Council member 2: “I’m Teri Renteria from Solana Beach, and I’m looking for sand.”

The dilemma is technological, budgetary and political.

The technology is doable: If we can put a man on the moon, etc. . . . But at what cost in dollars and time? Screens needed to catch bullets clog easily with other debris.

The process of dumping the soggy sand on a beach is roughly like having 130 fire hoses going full blast at the same time, said project director John Coon.

The original project was set at $49.8 million (all Navy funds) for dredging and $9.4 million (half state funds, half Navy funds) for putting the sand on beaches. As outlined by the Navy, various screening methods could add more than $20 million and delay the project up to a year, leaving the behemoth Stennis without a home port.

There is a school of thought that San Diego was fortunate to get backing for the sand project, and that Congress will be cool to the idea of putting up more money to put sand on the beaches of sunny, sassy Southern California.

“That’s not very likely,” said Steve Sachs, project overseer for the San Diego County Assn. of Governments.

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Although the bullet issue is the most pressing, there are also problems plaguing the dredging and sand replenishment.

Duncan Holaday, deputy assistant secretary of the Navy for installations and facilities, said last week that the discovery of the ammunition may require the Navy to do a more extensive environmental impact review, which means delay and money.

On Thursday, the county Air Pollution Control District Board voted 3 to 2 not to give the dredging firm more leeway in how much nitrogen oxide (linked to global warming) it can pump into the sky. Negotiations are underway.

“While the Navy pretends to be Santa Claus, toting bags of sand as gifts to San Diego, underneath the phony red suit is the Grinch who stole San Diego’s clean air and clean beaches,” said Environmental Health Coalition spokeswoman Paula Forbis.

If matters of pollution and public safety aren’t enough, there is the economic impact of bringing the Stennis and possibly other nuclear carriers to San Diego. The Stennis--with payroll and purchasing--will pump tens of millions of dollars into the local economy.

What’s more, the Navy is deciding among San Diego, Bremerton, Wash., and Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, as a home port for two more Nimitz-class carriers. Civic officials note that it is difficult to see how the prolonged dredging controversy helps San Diego’s chances.

At the request of the San Diego members of Congress, the acting assistant secretary of the Navy is being dispatched to San Diego. Locally, the hot seat belongs to Boothe, who has been on the job but a month.

What he inherited is the biggest contretemps between the Navy and this “Navy town” since the flap during Pete Wilson’s era as mayor over building a Naval hospital on city parkland.

“I parachuted into an interesting situation, to say the least,” Boothe said.