In November, last year, President Biden signed the historical $ One Trillion Infrastructure bill aimed to repair, rebuild and build America to sync with time, technology and needs of the hour and needs of the future. Yes, it means a lot.
Ever since the signing of the bill, Senate Houses, Local County management bodies and communities have stepped up their demands and are vying for funds to ‘rectify’ the landscapes in their respective regions. Waterways and water bodies that were for long, neglected have started to receive attention with the advent of Federal funds. One and a half billion dollars have been allotted for the repair of canal walls, locks, flood mitigation, desiltation of water bodies, river channel deepening, etc. The Army Corps of Engineers are the nodal agency that would design, award and supervise the contracts awarded.
Representatives from various local counties have been lobbying for funds for many years to protect their waterbodies and environment which haven’t had the US Federal governments attention in many decades. Thanks to the fund, the Senators and the County representatives are now hopeful of fulfilling their dreams of better littoral infrastructure.
Representatives Michelle Steel and Ken Calvert said that after decades of lobbying they are receiving nearly $16 million in dredging funds. Lower Newport Bay’s main channel (the harbour) has not been dredged to its required 25-foot design depth for many decades. Lacking money & political will to dredge the harbour’s main channel to its federally required design depth, until now, the infrastructure funds are doing the rescue. The representatives were also worried that the clearances required for project approval would be time-consuming and would delay the project. They fear that a delay for an independent third-party review could set the whole project back by years. Any delays could also increase the cost of the project which would further dampen the prospects of the project.
Disposal of the dredged sand, mostly contaminated is another cause of worry for environmentalists. A positive certified Environmental Impact Report is key to its disposal.
The majority at the City Council meeting agreed to allow an open-end third-party review of the City’s approved dredge project and once again the representatives fear that it may jeopardize the federal funding and scheduling of the multi-million dollar dredging project for Newport Harbour.
