EPA may retain offshore dump

Paul Clinton

The Environmental Protection Agency launched an effort to continue

using an underwater dump site about four miles off the city’s

coastline.

The site, known as “LA-3,” would be set up as a permanent dumping

area for sediment, mostly from Back Bay dredging, agency

oceanographer Allan Ota said. It has been used on an interim basis

since the late 1970s.

Under one proposal still on the table, the site could become a

regional dump site for L.A. projects, as well.

“We’re trying to minimize ocean disposal overall,” Ota said. “We

don’t want to spread [the waste] around.”

The federal agency held a public hearing on Monday at the Peter

and Mary Muth Interpretive Center in Newport Beach. At that meeting,

the EPA solicited public input on four possible uses for the site.

The agency is expected to release a full-scale environmental review

of each proposal in February.

City leaders support the establishment of the permanent

designation so they could use the site during a $38-million dredging

project set for October 2004.

“Our position has been that we want to use LA-3 permanently for

sediment,” Asst. City Manager Dave Kiff said. “If we have to go to [a

Long Beach site], it’s much more expensive.”

On July 3, the EPA published its four proposals in the Federal

Register.

The agency, at the urging of officials with Orange County and the

Army Corps of Engineers, is proposing three lead plans for the site.

Under one scenario, the project would split the amount of sediment

it could receive with a similar site off the shore of Long Beach. It

would receive sediment only from Orange County projects.

A second scenario proposes using it as the primary deep-water dump

site in Southern California. A third proposal would designate the Los

Angeles site as the primary regional dump. A fourth proposal would

leave the site as is.

Four miles offshore from Newport Harbor near the underwater

channel Newport Canyon, the site has been used since the late 1970s.

It has held an interim designation, as had a number of other

underwater sites along U.S. shorelines, Ota said. It was the main

collection site for a large-scale dredging project in the late 1980s.

The interim designations expired in the mid-1990s, except for

“LA-3,” which was granted an extension to accommodate a Back Bay

dredging project in 2000, Ota said.

The agency has also found some pollutants at the site.

“There is some contamination,” Ota said. “There might be some

elevations [in the levels of toxic contaminants], but there aren’t

any hot spots.”

* PAUL CLINTON covers the environment, business and politics. He

may be reached at (949) 764-4330 or by e-mail at

[email protected].