DISQUS

I don't know if I'd pray for that storm just yet John, mainly because this city is not ready for any "100-years" storm---the L.A. River would overflow and terrorize Long Beach. It would be similar to Hurricane Katrina and may have no effect on the Breakwater. It gets worse: The city has no real evacuation plan. It's one huge nightmare waiting to happen.

On a different note:
The total breakwater complex (all three segments) is 8.14 miles long (43,002 feet) and sits 1.5 miles from shore.

The San Pedro Breakwater (over by the Port of Los Angeles) is 11,152 feet long and was completed in 1937.

The Middle Breakwater (in front of the Port of Long Beach) is 18,500 feet long and was completed in 1942.

The Long Beach Breakwater (in front of the city's coast) 13,350 feet long and was completed in 1949.

Some are convinced that this whole structure is made from Catalina Island rock, but I found a 1944 L.A. Times article that begs to differ. Apparently, some rock came all the way from Riverside.

As Quoted from "Riverside Hills Provide Rock for Navy Project" Aug 5, 1944

"So hard and resistant are the chunks of Granite blasted from the Orman quarry hills that it is considered superior in every respect for marine foundations...Operated now by Guy F. Atkinson Co., it has provided rocks for great projects such as the Long Beach Breakwater."

Hmm.

Dear Mr. Post #8, would you like to chat this up with me? I'd love to find out what you know about all this. Drop me a line: jenny@thedistrictweekly.com

John Galt,

It's not sarcasm, it's a stupid mistake. Thank you for your comment. The post has been corrected.

Ps. Dagny called...she wants her smokes back--the ones with the dollar signs on 'em.

Megan, great story. Sometimes a reminder is all you need to be self-reliant.

Bill,
I'm flattered, but this is not about me.

In fact, it's not even my plan. The copyright belongs to Keith Higginbotham.
I'm a bit concerned now that the story was hard to follow. Did you have trouble reading it?
There's a big segment in his plan that aims to collect and recycle the trash in the flood control channel, bringing it to the SERRF plant down the street to turn it into energy. By doing so, the water going out to sea (and past the shores of Santa Catalina Island) would be monumentally cleaner than it is now.
Granted, it doesn't stop northern cities from polluting, but that effort hasn't been so effective as of late. I believe the last major efforts to beautify the river were in 2001 and 2005, and little change has come of both endeavors.
As for the breakwater, no one really knows for certain what modifications would be the most sufficient, but one highly regarded engineer's opinion suggests knocking an 1800-ft gap east of Queen's Gate in the wall and leaving the rest of it in tact. If you want information on this, let me know.
And, that's a whole other mess, involving city, state and federal cooperation. I never meant to make the procedure sound simple and am sorry if I did.
Further, as I noted above, the port probably won't adopt this plan in its entirety, but maybe there a few new things the city and the port will have to think about for their 2030 plan.
Shooting at every idea that comes in on a white horse isn't exactly an effective way to change things. Communicating about what the problems are and how they "could" be fixed is at least a start, right?

Theories perpetuate testing, which instigate laws and provoke change.

I know you don't have all the answers (I don't think anyone expects you to, and I'm not claiming to either). And, aside from your personal attacks on my character, you seem to have some solid ideas for reform. It may be in your best interest to get involved and publish your own theories, especially if you don't agree with the ones in circulation.

But, then again, I suppose this isn't about you, either.

If you have anything else you would like to discuss, please, contact me. I would love to hear from you.

Bill, just for clarification, Keith Higginbotham's plan seeks to use the Port of Long Beach's power and financial resources to increase circulation and water quality along our coast, while decreasing L.A. River mouth pollution. The port would, ideally, be obliged to do this as a mitigation project in return for expansion (something that is required for port expansion by law anyway).
The Port of Long Beach, as a department of the city, does have an obligation to keep its harm to a minimum and serve city residents through commerce according to the Tidelands Trust Act, but it has no interest in funding mitigation for the social issues you mention above. Those issues are presumably handled by an entirely different city department using finances from the general fund -- allocations that handle policing, construction, etc...
So you see, this has really nothing to do with Surfrider (a nonprofit organization in no way affiliated with the city of Long Beach), and although the port is using city resources (because it is a department of the city) it will not be using money from the general fund to spearhead Higginbotham's plan (it probably won't be using his plan anyway). Therefore, those residents from the "hood" who you speak of would have no qualms about how the money is spent, because it will not be their money.
The Port of Long Beach makes upwards of $90 million in profit annually -- money it traditionally reinvests in itself. The point being, it has the money to spend and if given the right incentive, it may do so. But this incentive does not include correcting, "gangs, infrastru[c]ture, schools, crime, sub par non code housing, etc..."
That said, I think both notions (bettering our beach front and bettering the segments of our "neglected LB") should be priorities. And I agree, the shootings and loss of life here are tragedies that need immediate attention.
However, this article doesn't focus on ridding Long Beach of crime, poverty and the like, and although I appreciate your extensive attention, I think your comments are out of place.
Maybe you should take your observations on the social ills of Long Beach to City Council meetings on Tuesday nights. I think it would be a much better forum for you, save the fact that you must state your full name and address.

I do have to admit I made a major error in this story. Higginbotham's plan does not intend to shift the mouth of the L.A. River, as I had initially stated. Instead, his idea addresses the problems associated with the river and the breakwater, giving the Port of Long Beach incentive to help fix these problems. The error has been corrected online.

Bill,

I read well, but thank you for your concern.
Would you like to talk about this? If so, please e-mail me: Jenny.Stockdale@gmail.com.

I'm concerned that some of your information is less-than-accurate and am interested to know where you got it from.
Also, I would like to know if you have any recommendations on how to fix Long Beach, if you think it needs fixing? Do you have a plan?

Dear Bill,
You're absolutely right, we should keep the water as toxic as possible and change nothing, because nothing can be done here better than it currently is. Let our children swim in Mercury and DDT for the next 50 years! Let the river mouth deluge us with trash! For nothing is wrong with Long Beach. The WalMart that is the lone commercial business downtown needs no competitors and the empty condos will save electricity! That makes undeniable sense. Maybe I should chronicle your astute, visionary notions?

Forgive me, that was the only way I ever learned how not to confuse "that" and "who." I wish you the best, as I do for your publication and all those who recently lost their jobs. I don't think I need to (but will) point out that petty online comments rarely solve real problems (I suppose that goes in all directions to this post, mine included). All this friction hasn't materialized for no reason though, and 'getting off of it already' wouldn't really solve anything either, would it? I'm a fresh college graduate with degrees in journalism and English and I can't get a job here in my field. I sat through a conference last spring at Cal State Long Beach listening to one journalist after the next talk about the grim future of journalism, layoffs, cutbacks, etc... It's a very real, very scary problem. Healthy discussion, though, that's what we're here for. Right? Good luck.

Just to be an ass, the response posted by pt-lbc, "I feel for the people that are losing their jobs" should grammatically be, "I feel for the people WHO are losing their jobs." You can rule this one out as an editor, eh?... Or maybe he or she considers those people to be inanimate objects like paper clips or pot holes? Just a thought.

For clarification, Port spokesman Art Wong said today that the budgeted amount for the facility's new logo was at least $400,000.

Chris, you made me want to have a smoke with this man, just to hear him talk. I don't smoke. But shit, great work / great man.

Thank you for your response. I really do appreciate your feedback.
I do understand your concern with proposing solutions to water quality problems without first addressing the problems.

I disagree with you, however, that the breakwater and Long Beach's water quality issues are unrelated.

It's true that the two reports described in the opening of this column (NRDC and Heal the Bay's Annual Report Card) have linked certain water quality issues to local sump-pump overflows (at places like Colorado Lagoon and Mothers Beach) and not directly to the breakwater.

However, both reports listed numerous other beaches in Long Beach with equally inadequate pollution marks, besides those of Colorado Lagoon and Alamitos Bay.

It should also be noted that both of these reports concentrate only on bacteria counts in the water (and not other toxins like PCB, DDT and mercury -- all of which were found in abundance in Long Beach's coastal waters in a 1998 Harvard thesis presentation by Kalon Morris ((which directly involved the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers))).

I agree that it was perhaps misleading to associate the sump pump bacterial component with the breakwater. I apologize for any misunderstanding.

However, it is a sound assertion of science that the breakwater mitigates wave action and water circulation within San Pedro Bay (that was the intent back in the 40s when the breakwater was completed for the U.S. Pacific Fleet).

Now, the water in San Pedro Bay gets very little circulation and receives more than its fair share of pollution from cities north of us, based on the geographic layout of two major rivers-- our polluting bookends.

Since so few of those toxins are adequately flushed from the water by natural wave circulation and long shore current, and so many more pollutants arrive on a daily basis, many of them (including bacteria) continue to reside in the ocean sediment.

Passing or failing grades aside, Long Beach has serious water quality problems (in addition to high bacteria counts) that need to be addressed.

I don't, however, want insinuate that providing a means to further-pollute the open ocean is an answer either.

The breakwater water may not be "the issue," for in a region this complex, there is no solitary issue; every component is interrelated and no variable is independent.

Further, it's an illusion that water quality problems are now just arriving; they've been regenerating for nearly 60 years in Long Beach.

Perhaps a necessary question to ask is, "Do you swim in the coastal waters of Long Beach?" and "If not, why?"

You're right. Simply reconfiguring a rock wall will not fix water quality problems. But provoking discussion on the subject -- constructive discussion that will implement progress -- is what I was aiming for with this column.

Thank you again and if you have any questions, I'd love to hear from you.