Environment |

Newport Beach set to have the West Coast’s first water wheel trash collector

Newport Beach is set to be the first city on the West Coast to turn to a relatively low-tech, autonomous water wheel system to scoop trash headed toward Upper Newport Bay, the harbor and the ocean.

The California Coastal Commission commended the city for its plan for corralling trash that flows from upstream communities along the San Diego Creek and Santa Ana Delhi Channel before it can reach the ocean, but its members included with their project approval this week a call for city leaders to do more in their own community by passing laws against single-use plastics and litter from to-go meals.

“I’m really pleased to see this project,” said Donne Brownsey, the commission’s chair. “I didn’t realize the watersheds were so extensive in Orange County, and I do hope it becomes a model for other communities. You aren’t the only one that has extensive trash problems.”

Newport Beach officials said other cities, including Seal Beach, Los Angeles and San Francisco, have expressed interest in the wheel and contacted them about the details.

The idea comes from The Mr. Trash Wheel Family operating in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor. That collection of water wheels has scooped up more than 2,000 tons of trash and debris since 2014.

The solution uses old and new technology, combining the power of water and sunlight to collect litter and debris. City officials say it could collect as much as 80% of the trash and debris from the ecologically sensitive bay, preventing it from flowing into the harbor, the ocean and onto the beaches.

Volunteers regularly have to wade through the water or use stand-up paddle boards to pick out the trash and debris by hand.

The proposed 17-foot-tall wheel on a 70-square-foot barge will be permanently docked 800 feet upstream of the Upper Newport Bay State Ecological Reserve and four miles upstream of the mouth of Newport Bay and the Pacific Ocean. It will be adjacent to San Diego Creek, between Jamboree Road and the 73 toll road.

Initially, the wheel was going to be on the other side of the bridge, in the upper part of Newport Bay, but environmentalists didn’t want a permanent structure in the ecological reserve, said John Kappeler, a senior engineer for Newport Beach who has been working with Coastal Commission staff on the project. The new location has the blessing of the California Department of Fish and Wildlife and is in a spot that sees little public use, he said.

A boom will be extended across the waterway to corral floating trash and shuttle it toward the water wheel. The water current will provide the power to turn the giant wheel, which will lift trash and debris from the water and deposits it into a dumpster barge. If the current is low, a solar panel would kick in to keep the system running.

During dry weather, city officials estimate the wheel will catch and collect 100% of the debris and trash, but during storms, it might collect a bit less. City officials said they would monitor those occasions and make adjustments as possible.

To fund the project, the city has a $1.68 million grant from the California Ocean Protection Council, a $500,000 grant from the Orange County Transportation Agency and Newport Beach will kick in another $500,000.

Now, 95% of the design is ready and permit requests have been submitted to other regulatory bodies such as the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, the Army Corps of Engineers, O.C. Flood Control Protection, the San Diego Regional Water Quality Control Board and the landowner.

The city will need to restore a little more than an acre of native riparian habitat on the northern and southern banks of Upper Newport Bay as part of the project and do another eel grass and Caulerpa survey and have a cultural resources person at the site before and during constriction.

A biologist will monitor birds and their nests during construction. The California gnatcatcher, songbirds, owls and raptors are known to frequent the area.

Construction is expected to take a least a year, including stopping work during the nesting season.

Kappeler said securing the Coastal Commission’s approval was the city’s biggest hurdle and he expects the required permits from other agencies will come through shortly. If all goes as expected, construction on the wheel could begin in early 2023.

Several people during the commission’s public comments period also pushed the idea that city officials need to do more about pollution in their own city.

Hoiyin Ip, a Sierra Club member who for years has advocated cleaning up plastics and cigarette butts in communities along the coast, said she hoped the commission would require Newport Beach to pass ordinances banning single-use plastics, citywide smoking and retail of tobacco products, as well as the sale, distribution, and use of balloons.

Bill Lane, a Dana Point Ocean Water Committee member, reiterated her thoughts.

“Once Newport Beach puts the interceptor into San Diego Creek, Dana Point will be encouraged to put one into the San Juan Creek, using millions of tax dollars to capture the plastics we should not have produced in the first place,” he said. “Trash capture is a good thing. But, Newport Beach should show proof of action before the interceptor is put in.”

But, Newport Beach Councilman Noah Blom, who owns several restaurants in town and sits on the city’s Water Quality/Coastal Tidelands Committee, said the city already does a lot to address trash that doesn’t come from upstream and said city staffers have worked on an ordinance for single-use plastics. Finding vendors who truly supply marine-safe products isn’t that easy, he said.

“We use regular cardboard boxes and paper bags,” he said. “We don’t give out plastic knives and forks. But to make regulations before there is a supply chain option, doesn’t work.”

Blom said he regularly participates in beach cleanups to deal with trash and debris on city beaches.

“The last one we did, we picked up tar because there wasn’t any more trash,” he said. “There’s more to be said for education. We’re spending a lot of money to make things better. We’re looking at innovative solutions, not just knee-jerk reactions.”

Assistant City Engineer Bob Stein, who with Kappeler represented Newport Beach at the meeting, said once the wheel is up and running, the debris collected in it will be a useful tool to educate and make the upstream communities more aware of their trash impacts.

“There is a certain reluctance by our upstream neighbors to take trash reduction measures,” Stein said. “This project will allow us to show them, and where we need to have a better enforcement mechanism to reduce trash.”