Dinghy Dock Extensions
15th Street Dinghy Dock Extension
Construction Finished; Dock Extensions in Service
Your input helped bring these dinghy dock extensions to fruition. The City is conducting outreach on contemplated time limits for use of these new public resources. Time limits are being considered to reduce the likelihood that the dock extensions will become dinghy graveyards. Harbor Resources personnel will solicit input from the public on time limits on Wednesday afternoon (5:30PM), July 7th, at the 15th Street Public Dock (pictured). Further opportunity for public input is possible at the following morning's Mooring Master Plan Subcommittee meeting. Members of your NMA Board will attend the Thursday morning meeting. Please see this flyer on time limit input.(*.pdf - 91KB) 
Public dock extensions have been installed at Fernando Street, 15th Street, and 19th Street public docks. As always, you can also send your comments on time limits to the Harbor Resources department by email or phone. See news page one for contact information.
Slip Survey
The City's Revenue office sent to real property owners a survey (*.pdf - 314KB) in advance of issuing new pier permits. The survey asks whether pier and slip space is rented and asks permit holders to report vessel identification for the vessels secured. Again, this survey comes from the City's Revenue department.
City ordinance 17.35.020(A)(4) (*.pdf - 297KB) (opens to p. 49) states that shore-connected piers bayward of commercial zones may be rented. If other piers are not to be rented, to raise revenue, will the City elect to issue higher-revenue commercial pier permits to residential users who have rented their piers?
Vessel Pumpout Stations
Here is a handy chart of vessel pumpout stations (*.pdf - 327KB) and public piers around Newport Harbor. The 15th St. pumpout station is operational; it has two redundant systems so it's very likely to be always operational.
Rhine Wharf progress
The Rhine Wharf repairs are complete and construction of the new public dinghy dock alongside the Rhine Wharf will commence September first, ready for mid-September public use. The projected specifications for float height are being revisited to make the float a safe but usable height.
Channel Marker 8
In May, the Newport Harbor Yacht-Jousting Pole, known as Channel Marker 8, was removed. Formerly an imposing steel structure topped with reflective 8 signage and a red light, Channel Marker 8 was, months ago, rammed by a vessel departing the harbor. Since then, just the unsigned lower steel tube remained. Though someone placed a warning light on the remains, the partial structure was a hazard to safe navigation. In its place remains a boat-friendly smaller floating lighted red buoy. If you're racing in a beer-can race, and marker 8 is given as a racing mark, you'll know what to look for:
Channel Marker 8, new and old
How grows the eelgrass?
At the June 2010 Harbor Commission meeting, Chris Miller reported that the final draft of the HAMP (click to learn about the Harbor Area Management Plan) will be presented to City Council for its approval and adoption in July 2010.
We always appreciate your continuing support and valued opinions.
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The January (2009) Harbor Commission meeting saw the presentation of the draft on mooring transferability after a ten-month stop at the City Attorney's office. The document represents hundreds of hours of citizen volunteer and City Staff time updating pertinent sections of City ordinances relating to mooring transfers. This project actually began about a year before the 2007 Orange County Grand Jury investigation of City mooring administration.
You are welcome to review the mooring transferability draft (*.pdf - 150KB) .
Following the City Attorney's review of the subcommittee's draft, the document was presented to the Harbor Commission for approval, but the commission recommended it back to the subcommittee for some further consideration of educational institution and sailing club mooring ownership and other details. Following subcommittee work, the draft has been submitted to the new City Attorney for his review. Subsequently, the draft will again be presented to the Harbor Commission at a future Harbor Commission meeting. The Log ran a story about the January 2009 Harbor Commission meeting at which transferability was addressed. You are encouraged to read the transferability draft itself for clarification.
Harbor Commission Meetings
The Newport Beach Harbor Commission typically meets on the second Wednesday each month. The next meeting is:
Look here for agendas posted the Friday evening before each Harbor Commission meeting. Several days following each meeting, minutes are posted on the same page.
In June, Harbor Resources Director Chris Miller reported to the Harbor Commission that the Upper Bay Dredging Project is on the home stretch and should be completed by the end of the year. Lower Bay Dredging is being coordinated with the Army Corps of Engineers. Refined estimates of the contaminated sediment from the Lower Bay project about 500,000 cubic yards of sediment will be proposed for fill in LA Harbor port expansion. About 120,000 cubic yards of that total includes Rhine Channel contaminated sediment. LA Harbor can accept Lower Bay sediment ineligible for offshore disposal, and such sediment is being actively solicited for this use. Funding will still be a challenge. (See live news feed below)
LA Harbor use of dredged Lower Bay sediment which cannot be disposed offshore is plan A while the Lido Reach CAD site is plan B for the dredged sediments. Anchor QEA is preparing the EIR and mitigated negative declaration for the City, in case the CAD site is needed.
What determines sediment eligibility for offshore disposal is the concentration of red-tagged substances in the sediment. Measuring equipment is capable of detecting parts-per-billion, and standards are written at various levels on this scale. For perspective, one ppb is the equivalent of 50 drops of water diluted into an Olympic-sized swimming pool which is over six feet deep.
Here is a link to the City's dredging and CAD site page. You can click to a Google search of blogs which discuss Newport Harbor dredging. Or, below, see a Google News live  feed on news related to dredging the harbor. If there are any recent stories on this topic, they will appear in the blue box below. For history buffs, click here to a Google News archive query on Newport Harbor dredging.
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About us -
The Newport Mooring Association is responsible for promoting the business and personal interests of mooring permittees and persons holding property, real or personal, adjacent or attached to, residing on, or anchored to tidelands or public property in, upon, or adjacent to Newport Harbor, as those interests relate to the use of the bay area.
Newport Mooring Association
P.O. Box 1118
Newport Beach, CA 92659-0118
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