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Port Plans Mired

The Port of Oakland’s plan to dredge 13 million cubic yards of mud from their inner and outer harbor channels to accommodate larger ships has run into a few snags, despite winning approval from the S.F. Bay Regional Board in November and BCDC in December. The dredging project would deepen the channels from 42 to 50 feet, and would use dredge spoils to restore shallow water/eelgrass habitat at Middle Harbor, as well as restore tidal marsh at Hamilton Field and transform seasonal wetlands to tidal marsh in Suisun March (the controversial Montezuma Wetlands project). Environmental groups are continuing to fight the approval over concerns about possible impacts on water quality, and have appealed the Regional Board’s decision to the State Board, which is deciding whether or not to hear the appeal, according to the Port’s Jody Zaitlin.

Enviros are concerned that the dredge spoils used to restore wetlands will contain contaminants and that the planned restoration projects may fail. "They claim they can recreate eelgrass habitat by burying existing eelgrass under dredge spoils," says Save the Bay’s David Lewis. "But other attempts to do so have been pretty unsuccessful so far." Another big worry is that a deeper channel will enable yet more invasive species to enter the Estuary, via increased ballast water discharges. "I think we’ll see bigger boats and faster-traveling ships, which will mean better survival of invasives," says WaterKeeper’s Jonathan Kaplan. "The Port is really doing nothing to address the issue. They’ve offered $150,000 to study on-ship treatment technologies [via a grant to the State Lands Commission], but they don’t have jurisdiction over all of the ships entering the Bay. We need some kind of on-shore treatment technology or a floating treatment system." The Port recently agreed to require ships headed into Oakland to exchange their ballast water at sea. But that alone is inadequate to stem the tide of invasive creatures just waiting to make themselves at home in the Bay, says Kaplan. "In addition to being hard to enforce, ballast water exchange at sea is usually incomplete and sometimes infeasible for safety reasons. All it takes is one or two organisms to start a new invasion."

Contacts: Jonathan Kaplan (415)561-2299; Jody Zaitlin (510)627-1179

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