Save Newport Real News in Newport Beach
Dog Beach is getting dredged. Dredging is when they take all the sand out of somewhere– generally this is done when boats are scraping the bottom of a channel or harbor, making the body of water deeper for easier passage. However, in the case of Dog Beach, this is being done to prevent the changing of the Santa Ana River– seriously!
About in 1920, the river was re-routed to prevent flooding in the Newport Area, as the river did tend to change course every decade or so due to shifting land features. This maintenance of the land will help to prevent a shifting Santa Ana river, which would be disastrous no matter where it shifted to.
While we’ve seen bandaids done for dredging about every 8 months, large-scale dredging is generally on a 10-year cycle, but this time the county is dredging just 10 years in due to agreements with the Army Corps of Engineers about sand maximums and water flow– and, you know, preventing the Santa Ana River from changing course, and all. They’ll be manually dredging from Adams down south, and where it is not feasible to manually dredge they will be using a large pipe to move the sand to the fenced-in area on Newport’s side. The sand will be in an enormous pile there until about April or May of next year, where the sand will be redistributed to areas of Newport that are actually losing sand and in need of reshoring.
So let’s cut to the chase: what will it do to Dog Beach? Will we lose our beloved beach? Sort of. They’re going to pull as much as possible given the flow of the Santa Ana. If we get a lot of rain, it will create unsafe conditions to pull a lot of it, or if we have a dry winter, they could pull as much sand as they can get to the jetties– however, they can’t pull too much or the jetties will destabilize, presenting a major hazard not just for people, but for erosion as well. If we have a dry winter, it means that we will likely lose the beach during high tide, but you can always check our Low Tide Page to plan your trips!
So how and when will we get the beach back? The next big South Swell will push the sand in. These happen during this time of year with a hurricane, like the one off of Baja right now. Hurricane swells generally happen through October, but could be as late as November– but rest assured, while it may be gone at low tide for a few weeks or even a month or two, Dog Beach will most definitely come back– and in short order.
You may be asking yourself what the legal status of Dog Beach is– that’s a more difficult question to answer. We had a 7-0 unanimous vote (Tuesday, March 1, 2016) at the Parks, Beach, and Recreations Committee Meeting. We had a 5-0 unanimous vote (Tuesday, April 26, 2016) at the Orange County Board of Supervisors, and they just need one more followup vote to solidify it as Dog Beach– but instead of doing that vote two weeks later as scheduled, things got weird. There are birds called “least terns” which inhabit the shores on the Huntington side of Dog Beach. They are an endangered species and any new buildings around the cages set off alarms at all levels of government. Right now we are attempting to work our way through these layers to allow Dog Beach to become official. I’ll do an in-depth piece on this in the coming days, but until then, get all the use you can from Dog Beach– I am still fighting for you, and I humbly ask for your vote for Newport Beach City Council (District 5) in November– it’s a city-wide vote in Newport!
