A race against nature’s clock

NEWPORT BEACH — The Upper Newport Bay is trying to disappear, and Andrew Hunt is trying to stop it.

He’s the project engineer for DD-M Crane and Rigging, the construction contractor on the upper bay dredging project, and his job is to save a natural resource — a 1,000-acre estuary — by stopping a natural process.

“A salt marsh by its nature destroys itself. It’s constantly changing,” Hunt said on a recent tour of the dredging project. “In 20 years’ time, this all becomes meadows. Another 20 years, grassland.”

The Upper Newport Bay is home to endangered plants and animals, including two bird species, the least tern and the clapper rail. Water flowing into the bay from inland carries sediment that slowly fills in the bay and destroys the birds’ wetland habitat.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which manages much of the upper bay, spearheaded a $39 million dredging and restoration project that started in April, 2006. The portion DD-M is under contract to complete is expected to wrap up around October, Hunt said.

So far, much of the work has been to deepen channels around the bay, and workers have cleared vegetation from Shellmaker Island and used dredged material to cap “hot dog tern island,” so called because of its shape. Hunt said the work also includes building a new island for least terns that should be ready in time for nesting season next year.

“It’s taking these nesting islands and turning them back onto islands,” he said. “At low tide, you had these land bridges, so terrestrial predators were able to get on there.”

The silt is removed from the bay by two pieces of equipment: a suction dredge and a “clamshell” dredge, which essentially uses a large claw to grab material and move it onto a scow. The clamshell dredge can move about 3,000 cubic yards of silt a day, and when the scow is full it moves to an offshore dump site.

The work continues 24 hours a day and scows are constantly cycling in and out of the work area to remove the dredged material. Some of it goes to a disposal site 5 miles southwest of the Newport Harbor entrance, and some that gets dumped offshore from Newport will eventually wash back in to replenish the city’s beaches, Hunt said.

Strange things sometimes turn up along with the sand and soil. Anyone who’s kayaked in the back bay has seen what looks like a graveyard of shopping carts covered with mud and plants.

“We’ve come across shopping carts and refrigerators and couches,” Hunt said. “It’s amazing what comes down in a big flood.”

By end of May, close to 270,000 cubic yards of material will have been removed from the back bay. According to earlier estimates, a total of about 2 million cubic yards are to be dredged when the project is finished.

Hunt said the last phase is a large basin toward the Jamboree Road end of the bay. That project will be done through a separate contract and could take another year. But a contractor can’t be hired to do that work until another $14 million in federal funding is secured, Newport Beach Assistant City Manager Dave Kiff said. The city, Orange County and the Corps all have collaborated to plan the project and seek funds to pay for it.

The dredging project so far has gotten good reviews. Hunt said anglers tell him fishing in the area has improved because the waterways are more open, and more birds seem to be hanging around because the dredging stirs up things they like to eat.

Hunt calls himself a “closet naturalist” and always keeps his camera close to get shots of the wildlife at the project site. While you could argue that his work is fighting nature, he doesn’t see it that way.

“The whole idea of nature preserves is changing because you can’t preserve it — it’s always in flux,” Hunt said. “Now it’s nature management, so we’re just trying to manage it.”