Muck Raking in the Bay : Equipment Invades Nature Refuge to Dredge Debris That’s Choking Habitat

Set among the lissome terns, gulls and sand bass that call Newport Bay home, the newest additions to the waterway’s scene lack a certain grace.

But while the dredge and barge that lumbered into the bay on a January afternoon--and which have been sucking mud from its bottom ever since--are ugly, they may represent the best chance the more glorious creatures of the refuge have to survive.

The noisy scows with pipes snaking into the water are the centerpieces of a $5.4-million effort to scoop up more than 800,000 cubic yards of silt and sediment that have been choking the bay--a habitat to more than a dozen endangered species and the largest open water estuary in Southern California.

If all goes as planned, the dredges will clear a channel 14 feet deep and 100 feet wide in most places through the center of the 752-acre bay. At its widest point, in the upper bay, the channel will be 600 feet wide.

With the same technology, from hydraulic pumps to satellite-driven underwater mapping, that dredging companies have used to pull the slop out of Los Angeles and Long Beach harbors, a company contracted by the county has pumped more than 75,000 cubic yards of mud and junk out of the bay since Jan. 18.

The take in just the first two months includes refrigerators, shopping carts, sunken skiffs and thousands of bottles and beer and soda cans. The garbage, sunk deep in the mud and sandbars of the bay for years, has threatened the 78 species of fish and the dozens of species of birds that live in the bay.

The silt was as dangerous as the garbage to the survival of bay species. With the San Diego Creek, the Santa Ana-Delhi Channel and storm channels from several cities feeding into the bay, the buildup has threatened to fundamentally alter the ecosystem by turning portions of the bay into prairie. Such a transformation would cut off the mixing of salt and fresh water that provides food and home to a rich variety of plants, fish and rare birds.

Among the most treasured of the bay’s creatures endangered by the silt buildup is the light-footed clapper rail. The rare bird, which thrives only in coastal wetlands, is more populous in Newport Bay than anywhere in the United States.

With development covering much of the California coast and concrete channels where rivers used to be, coastal wetlands such as Newport Bay are particularly precious, said John Scholl, Upper Newport Bay fish and wildlife interpreter for the state Department of Fish and Game.

“Upper Newport Bay is one of a kind. If we lose it, there’s nothing else to take its place.”

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The last dredging was in 1987 and should have been repeated regularly on a smaller scale since, Scholl said. But bureaucratic hurdles and a scuffle over funds delayed the work.

Finally, with silt and muck threatening to overflow drainage basins, county supervisors voted last fall to start the dredging project; they have yet to come up with the remaining $3.4 million of the total estimated cost for the dredging.

The county has fronted the cost so far and has promised to pay contractors the entire amount. County officials secured $2 million in state funding this year to offset the cost and hope to get more in 1999.

“It was either step up the pace and get the job done, or wait and wait until we’re in even worse shape,” said Orange County Supervisor Tom Wilson.

“We don’t know where the extra money is going to come from, but everyone agreed this needs to be done before it becomes a crisis.”

The Irvine Co., Newport Beach and the county, all of which control portions of the bay, have spent an additional $800,000 on securing the necessary permits from no less than 14 regulatory agencies.

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The dredging operation has been greeted uneasily by the people and animals that are regulars at the bay.

As mud hens and terns look on quizzically, and kayakers and canoeists paddle by warily, the dredges emit a constant hum from their huge motors. Operated by Oceanside-based Soliflo, the dredges are awkward, teal-colored giants vibrating with the sound of powerful engines.

Six thousand feet of piping sits on the shore and in the bay, hazards to boaters who miss signs warning them to stay away.

Already, dredging crews have had to rescue several people whose kayaks overturned when they hit the pipes. Others have unwittingly steered their craft straight for the 3-foot-long steel blades wielded by the dredge before they were warned off. The blades, at the end of a robotic arm, cut through muck.

“I knew they were going to dredge it, so I stay away,” said Matt Ross, 38, a lawyer moving his craft carefully among the orange-and-black buoys set out to mark safe waters.

“The Back Bay is a special place; there’s no place like it. I’m glad they’re doing this. We’ll just have to get used to it for a while.”

A big black barge adorned with rust sits about 40 feet off Dover Shores, while a device like an underwater vacuum cleaner sucks up silt and deposits it in the nearby barge at the rate of 10 cubic feet per minute.

The barge holds 1,500 cubic yards of material. Every night, when it is full, a tugboat pulls it 4 1/2 miles out to sea, where crews dump the day’s take. The garbage, which is separated for recycling, goes into Newport Canyon.

The work is expected to take more than a year.

“If you don’t do this pretty soon, this all silts in, fills up, and you lose your endangered species habitat,” said Larry Paul, coastal facilities manager for the county Harbors, Beaches and Parks Department. “And what do you do then?”