A wreath memorializing Long Beach’s long, lost waves is set up on the beach during last year’s inaugural Paddle Out in Memory of the Waves, an event staged during the 2010 Breakwater Awareness Month. Photo by Daniel deBoom.
5:15am | This week brought bad news for residents and activists who seek to bring waves back to Long Beach.
Tuesday’s release of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ work schedule for the rest of the year revealed that no funding has been set aside for the corps to conduct a study on the feasibility of removing or augmenting the city’s roughly 2.5-mile seawall, the Press-Telegram reported.
The city and the corps in December reached an agreement to share the cost of the $8.3 million study over the next four years. The study was put on hold, however, because the corps was sans a budget until last month.
A spokesman for the corps’ Los Angeles office told the PT that the agency was unable to obtain federal funding for the study during fiscal year 2011. As of now, funding for the study has not been included in the corps’ 2012 proposed budget, though efforts are being made to have the necessary funding added, the spokesman reportedly said.
The revelation that the study would continue to be on hold at least through the end of the federal fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30, has arrived in the midst of the city’s observance of Breakwater Awareness Month.
Councilman Patrick O’Donnell is spearheading several events in honor of the observance, including last week’s social forum at a surf shop on Fourth Street where awards were distributed to reconfiguration advocates and this Saturday’s second annual Paddle Out in Memory of the Waves. The final event is set for next Wednesday, when residents will gather at a town-hall style meeting at Ecco’s Pizza to be updated on the status of the push to reconfigure the breakwater.
O’Donnell did not appear to be phased by the news, telling the PT that advocates have “always been prepared for a long fight.”
“I think this highlights the need for a breakwater awareness month,” he reportedly said. “There’s a chance to educate local and national leaders to the economic and environmental importance of breakwater reconfiguration.”
The breakwater, which runs from the Queen’s Way Gate to the west and the Alamitos Channel to the east, was built during the 1940s and completed in 1949, according to a fact sheet found on the website of the Surfrider Foundation’s Long Beach chapter.
Reconfiguration of the breakwater is sought due to the negative impacts it makes on the coastal environment. Long Beach’s waterfront has deteriorated since the installation of the seawall, which traps within the harbor urban runoff and stormwater from the Los Angeles River. It also interupts the ocean’s natural flow; waves and the ocean’s current would normally keep the city’s beaches and coastal waters free from stagnating pollutants, according to the nationally recognized environmental group.
Anyone interested in participating in tomorrow’s paddle out should meet on the beach off of Ocean Boulevard and Granada Avenue at 10 a.m.