Fish barge debate drags on

Harbor Commission will discuss the issue Wednesday, relay its recommendations to City Council.The Newport Beach Harbor Commission could be close to wrapping up its discussions on a new permit for a barge used to raise white sea bass.

The commission will discuss the matter at its Wednesday meeting. Harbor commissioners will not have the final say on whether the barge will be allowed to stay in Newport Harbor; instead, they will relay a recommendation to the Newport Beach City Council.

The commissioners’ decision will depend on whether the barge’s operators, the Balboa Angling Club-affiliated Pacific Fisheries Enhancement Foundation, have successfully completed a list of repairs, said Ralph Rodheim, vice chairman of the harbor commission. The repairs were intended to keep sea lions away and improve the barge’s appearance.

“If they have accomplished everything they said they would do, I think we would look on them favorably,” Rodheim said. “We’re not playing games. I’d be hard-pressed to support them if they have not done what they said they were going to do.”

Rodheim presided over a harbor commission meeting in November at which commissioners delayed making a recommendation on the barge’s permit in order to give the barge operators time to complete repairs.

Representatives from Newport Beach’s Harbor Resources Division could not be reached Monday to comment on whether repairs have been made to the satisfaction of city staffers. Alex Samios, president of Pacific Fisheries Enhancement Foundation, also could not be reached for comment Monday.

The barge, moored just east of the Balboa Pavilion, has been in the news since June. Debate over whether the barge belongs in Newport Harbor has centered on the twin issues of whether it attracts bothersome sea lions and whether it is too ugly for the harbor.

Barge operators worked to make the barge sea lion-proof in June after Balboa Peninsula residents objected to the noisy sea mammals, which broke into the facility around Memorial Day.

Those fixes did not resolve the matter. In September, harbor commissioners voted to suspend the barge’s mooring permit and rejected a plan proposed by Samios to spruce up the facility. In October, harbor resources manager Tom Rossmiller informed Samios in a letter of his intentions to cancel the barge’s mooring permit. In the same letter, Rossmiller invited Samios to submit a list of repairs for the barge that would help satisfy the city’s and residents’ concerns.

Samios has said that harbor commissioners have given too much weight to residents’ concerns, which often revolve around the facility’s aesthetics. In November, he sent an e-mail to Newport officials and members of the local media in which he charged that harbor commissioners have “put up hurdle after hurdle to snub this program.”

Harbor commission chairman John Corrough rejected the notion that commissioners have taken a one-sided approach. He pointed out commissioners’ previous statements in which they have supported the foundation’s goal of raising white sea bass. Corrough said he and his colleagues have taken a balanced approach to the issue, which he thinks has already occupied too much of the commission’s time.

“Unless someone gave us a Solomon-esque scale for deciding where the balance point is, we have to use our own judgment and experience. It’s not a political decision,” Corrough said.

* ANDREW EDWARDS covers business and the environment. He can be reached at (714) 966-4624 or by e-mail at [email protected].