Jessica Cejnar Andrews / Friday, June 9, 2023 @ 2:55 p.m.
Crescent City's Beachfront Park Expansion May Offer A Solution To Harbor's Dredge Dilemma
Crescent City's Beachfront Park expansion may offer a use for dredge material the Harbor District has been storing for 10 years. | Courtesy of PGADesign
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The Crescent City Harbor District may have a home for the dredge tailings it’s been storing for the past decade — Crescent City’s expanded Beachfront Park.
The California Water Quality Control Board is ready to issue a beneficial use permit to the port as soon as it has a “permitted project” in mind, Harbormaster Tim Petrick told commissioners Tuesday. He said he plans to meet with City Manager Eric Wier to discuss what both sides need to get that dirt moved.
“Front Street Park needs a lot of fill material,” Petrick said, meaning Beachfront Park. “Once we have that in place, at least the broad terms of an agreement, we can submit to the Army Corps to use funds to start trucking that as soon as permits are approved.”
Using those dredge spoils at Beachfront Park is an idea “we are trying to vet,” Wier told the Outpost on Friday. But the conversation is still in its early stages, he said.
“It makes sense on that surface level where the Harbor needs to find a home for these dredge spoils,” Wier said. “If they are suitable material we certainly have a need when we’re looking to build up, especially that amphitheater area. It could be a nice match.”
The Crescent City Harbor District has housed more than 90,000 cubic yards of fine silt and soil in its dredge ponds for more than 10 years. Its disposal and the Harbor District’s efforts to get the state to issue a beneficial use permit has been a point of contention at meetings for at least two years.
That beneficial use permit is needed for the Harbor District’s open application for a dredge permit with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to be approved.
On Tuesday, Petrick, who attended the California Association of Harbormasters and Port Captains conference in Sacramento with Commissioner Harry Adams late last month, said many harbors are experiencing challenges with permitting. One thing they’ll be discussing this summer is how to streamline the process, he said.
One big stumbling block for Crescent City is the Army Corps of Engineers dredge permit lapsed, according to both Petrick and Adams.
“When we get our permits, we got to keep them forever,” Adams said. “Monterey’s dredging, Santa Cruz is dredging, but they’ve had permits for 20, 30, 40 years and they never let them go bad. We’ve got to get to that point and make a relationship with the Army Corps of Engineers.”
Adams’ assessment was one the Harbor District’s long-time tenant, Fashion Blacksmith owner Ted Long agreed with.
Long and the Harbor District recently concluded a legal dispute over the port’s inability to dredge underneath Fashion Blacksmith’s synchrolift due to tightened regulations and the lack of the necessary permits.
On Tuesday, Long said if the Harbor District’s dredge permits had not lapsed, dredging would be accomplished.
“Monterey, Santa Cruz, Ventura, Humboldt Bay are all getting dredged because they maintained their U.S. Army Corps of Engineers 10-year block permit. From that permit flows other permits,” Long said. “In April 2015, Richard Young suggested to this board that obtaining permits pursuing renewal of permits was of immediate and primary importance. This Board failed to do that. Part of this Board was there in 2015, not all of this Board, but some of this Board was.”
Young was the Crescent City Harbormaster at the time and was succeeded by Charlie Helms. Petrick has been the harbormaster since 2020.
On Tuesday, in response to a question from a member of the public, about a potential payout for Fashion Blacksmith, Petrick said the Harbor District is “pursuing all of our legal options.”
“When that award becomes final, it will be something the Harbor District handles,” he said.
On Friday, Wier said construction of the expanded Beachfront Park, which includes an amphitheater, waterfront plaza, Tolowa cultural interpretive walk, a bike pump track and an expanded KidsTown, will begin next spring. The city’s consultants, GreenWorks, are about 30 percent of the way through the design phase.
Crescent City still needs a Coastal Development Permit, however, Wier said. The design phase will likely conclude in January or February, he said.
As for using the Harbor District’s dredge materials for the amphitheater, Wier said it could save both parties a lot of money.
“(It) would be very logistically easy, for lack of a better term, for transport to take them down the street and be able to use them in Beachfront Park,” Wier said.
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