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By Laylan Connelly
Orange County Register
June 23, 2005
NEWPORT
BEACH – Jack Crabbs was on his oceanfront porch smoking a
cigarette when he looked over the sand dune in front of his
home and saw something odd stirring up the beach.
It was midnight, far too late for city workers to be on the
job. He watched as tractors flattened the sand about three
houses over from his.
"I just thought it was bizarre," said Crabbs, 32,
who says he did not get a look at the drivers. "I thought
it was pretty shady."
Call it the mystery of the missing sand dunes.
No one seems to know how several 4-foot-tall mounds of sand
disappeared from the beach of West Newport in mid-April - but
the California Coastal Commission sure wants to know who did
it and who is going to put them back.
"It's pretty alarming. It's disappointing that something
like this would happen," said Lisa Haage, the
commission's chief of enforcement. "We're very sad. There
were native dunes that are now gone."
Sand dunes have naturally developed in front of about 10
beachfront houses in the area over the years, making it harder
for homeowners to see waves crashing on the beach. While the
dunes offer a bit of privacy from beachgoers and block the
wind for residents, Crabbs said he'd rather they were gone.
"I wish someone would bulldoze these," he said,
pointing to the dunes that stand between his porch and the
ocean.
Digging for answers
In a letter to the city, the commission accuses one or
several homeowners of making an "under-the-table"
deal with a contractor who was working on a project nearby in
the Santa Ana River.
The commission is demanding that Newport Beach rebuild the
ice-plant-dotted dunes that sat adjacent to the river - even
though no one is accusing the city of leveling the mounds.
"That's (like) someone coming in and robbing a bank and
making us pay it back," said City Manager Homer Bludau.
The Coastal Commission calls the shots for most landscape
alterations on or near the sand. Removing the dunes would
require a permit. Whoever flattened the sand violated the
Coastal Act, the commission staff said.
Officials said the dunes are important because they are
potential nesting sites for the California least terns that
breed nearby. They say natural formations should not be
disturbed.
The commission last week asked the Orange County District
Attorney's Office to look into the disappearing dunes, but no
formal investigation has started, said Joel Stone, an attorney
in the DA's environmental protection unit.
Coastal Commission disputes are rarely referred to the DA's
office, said Andrew Willis, a commission staff member.
Newport Beach police are questioning homeowners in the area,
said Assistant City Manager Dave Kiff.
Like the Coastal Commission, Councilman Steve Rosansky assumes
a homeowner had a hand in the crime.
"It was probably someone who said, 'We'll give you a
couple hundred dollars to remove that.' Who did it? We'll
probably never know," he said.
When residents were asked this week about the missing sand
dunes, they said they have no clue where they went.
When asked about the flattened dunes, one resident smiled
sheepishly and said he didn't know anything about it. He
refused to give his name, hurrying to shut his car door.
Remedy can be costly
A city beach maintenance supervisor first discovered the
sand dunes were missing the morning of April 18. He notified
Mike Ladouceur, a supervisor with CJW Construction. The
company was working nearby on a Santa Ana River dredging
project for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
Ladouceur contacted police and said a front-loader and an
excavator could have been stolen from their job site, used to
level the dunes, then replaced.
Alan Perkovich of CJW said his employees had nothing to do
with it - he'd bet an entire year's paycheck on it - but he
could not vouch for subcontractors on the project, who have
left town. He said the equipment uses universal keys, and
anyone could have started them.
Perkovich said if someone took his equipment to level the
sand, it's a crime against his company - no different than
stealing a car for a joyride.
"We feel a crime was committed," Perkovich said.
"I can't sit and make accusations to say who did
it."
Resculpting the dunes may not be as easy as piling up some
sand.
It will probably require a restoration ecologist to take a
biological survey of the land, determine what has been
destroyed and how it should be re-created. A bulldozer would
have to be brought in to dump the sand. The dunes have to be
sculpted. New vegetation has to be bought, and someone has to
monitor the plants as they grow, said Willis.
"The price tag can start to escalate pretty
quickly," he said, not specifying an amount.
The commission originally gave the city a May 26 deadline to
rebuild the dunes. The city is working on a response to the
commission, and has asked for an extension in order to decide
if and how the city would replace the dunes, said city
attorney Robin Clauson.
"I think it's kind of unusual that we're being forced to
place it back how it was," said Rosansky.
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