Photo by Bruce Perry via CSULB Geology Department
At Tuesday’s City Council meeting, the council unanimously voted to move forward on renegotiating its breakwater study agreement with the Army Corps of Engineers, following a federal alteration in the ways in which such studies are conducted.
The four-year, $8 million East San Pedro Bay Ecosystem Restoration Study that was approved in 2010—with the City and the Corps splitting the bill—has now been replaced with what is being called a “3x3x3” model, which stipulates that the feasibility study take no longer than three years to conduct, cost no more than $3 million and fit into a binder less than three inches thick.
For more than four years, the City has been involved in various reconnaissance studies regarding the breakwater, the wall of rocks which prevents waves in order to have safer harbors. With the lack of water movement, the natural cleansing mechanism of the waves has become eradicated and the Long Beach shoreline has since been plagued by exacerbated levels of bacteria and sediment collection.
In this new, much cheaper study, the goals will remain the same: use the study to promote ecosystem restoration, increase water quality, to increase recreational activities, and to protect the already-exisiting infrastructure which includes homes and maritime navigation and operations. A previous study also cited a $52 million stimulus to Long Beach if the breakwater issue is addressed, making this both an environmental and economic issue.
But when, exactly, this new study model will come to Long Beach remains to be determined. Despite the fact that the City has stepped up with its new share of $1.5 million, the Federal side remains lacking, particularly given that the City can no longer approach Congress for funds but must have it come through the president’s budget—a far more competitive funding arena.
The next steps involve how to re-scope an $8 million, four-year study into a $3 million, three-year one. For example, the issue of sand replenishment for the peninsula, in which the City currently spends some $400,000 annually lifting sand from the Belmont Pier to protect the peninsula, was initially included in the $8 million study; however, issues such as sand replenishment and others brought up in the original proposed study could face the chopping block since the study has to be trimmed.
However, the most urgent next step must be to renegotiate the City’s agreement with the Army Corps. Until a renegotiation has been reached, a re-scope of the project—which costs the Corps around $50,000 to do—cannot go forth.
“We want to be able to negotiation with the Corp, to see what this all means, to see if there is a way we can accelerate [the re-scoping], if there is a way we could advance some funds possibly, or do something creative to move this project forward,” said the City’s Director of Government Affairs and Strategic Initiatives, Tom Modica.
If that proposal to renegotiate is done by the end of the year, Modica estimates the project can go forth beginning sometime in 2013.