3 Rescued in Tug Accident

A tugboat working on a dredging project in Anaheim Bay capsized Thursday morning, catapulting its three crew members into the water near the Seal Beach Naval Station, the Orange County Sheriff’s Harbor Patrol reported.

Sailors in a U.S. Coast Guard vessel on routine patrol saw the accident and rescued the tug crew. One was taken to the Seal Beach Maritime Medical Facility, where he was reported in stable condition with broken ribs and cuts.

The Coast Guard would not release the names of the crew members.

Meantime, less than a mile away, the dredging project stirred up enough sediment from the ocean floor to elevate bacteria levels and cause health officials to issue a water quality warning. Officials advised swimmers to stay away from a 2,000-foot stretch of Sunset Beach.

The tugboat accident occurred shortly after 7 a.m. The crew was struggling with an anchor that was stuck on a pipe when a swell hit the 55-foot tug and tossed them into the water, Harbor Patrol Sgt. Karl Von Voigt said. All three were wearing life vests.

“It was very fortunate we were [there],” said Dan Tremper, a Coast Guard spokesman. “It happened right in front of us.”

The Harbor Patrol and the Los Angeles Fire Department spent much of the day righting the tug, he said.

The dredging project is taking offshore sand from an area near the outer Naval Weapons Station jetties and bringing it close to shore, where waves will gradually wash it onto the beach.

The work has stirred up the ocean floor, and bacteria levels have risen to exceed state standards, said Larry Honeybourne, chief of the county Health Care Agency’s water quality section. But health officials have not pinpointed the cause of the higher levels.

Officials put up signs from the Anaheim Bay breakwater to 24th Street in Sunset Beach warning swimmers that “water contact may cause illness.”

The bacteria is an indicator that disease-carrying organisms, such as viruses, are also present, Honeybourne said.

The agency was first contacted by beachgoers concerned about the dark color and odor of the replenished sand on the beach, but the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which is handling the project, said such traits are caused by safe organic material and will soon fade.

The dredging is expected to continue for two weeks. Health care workers, who usually check bacteria levels weekly, will step up monitoring to two or three times a week, Honeybourne said.