Questions and Answers

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Email info@FOHG.org, or fill out the form on our Contact Us page with your question and we will do our best to get an answer and post the Q&A to this page.

Question: What is the problem with the Santa Cruz Harbor?

Answer: The harbor is currently experienceing a serious sedimentation problem in the upper and lower harbor as a result of sand and silt flowing downstream from the Arana Gulch Watershed. Many slips have become unusable as they fill with silt and it is getting increasingly more expensive to remove this material. The harbor does not have adequate funds to cover the costs of removing this sand and silt. Estimates of the cost to return the harbor to its design depth range from one to three million dollars! Loss of slip revenues and increased disposal costs are leading to a crisis which must be addressed by the Port District and the City & County of Santa Cruz, as well as those responsible for the increased erosion in the Arana Gulch Watershed.

Question: Many years ago, there was a bucket crane which lifted mud and silt from the upper harbor. This may have been a general solution to the 1989 earthquake. Is this a normal maintenance operation?

Answer: Yes...the harbor has clamshelled and hauled away sediments occasionally in the past. One of the main problems is that this costs anywhere from $70 to $100 per cu yard compared to less than $10 per cubic yard for dredging. With an estimated 25,000 cu yds in the harbor now, clamshelling would be an extremely costly solution. In addition, there would be significant impacts to the local neighborhood if trucks were used to haul sediments away. Also, alot more fuel would have to be used to truck sediments the 15-20 mile distance to the disposal site versus moving it only 3000 feet using the dredge...so dredging is more energy efficient!

Question: What is the relative level of hazard of the upper harbor dredge sediments compared to the harbor entrance dredge sediments?

Answer: Relative hazard of materials all depends on which spots are dredged. All areas are tested for biological toxicity and extensive chemical analysis before they are permitted to be dredged. Finer sediments tend to have higher levels of contaminants. That is why upper harbor dredging tends to be more 'controversial'. But there are definitely areas in upper harbor that can be safely dredged and pass all the EPA tests. Since the entrance channel material is usually 95+% sand versus 50-90% sand for upper harbor, the entrance material has always had very minute levels of any contaminants. The main issue with entrance harbor sand is the sometimes release of hydrogen sulfide gas from rotting seaweed contained in the sand. As a result, there is a air pollution protocol that the Port District follows to measure and mitigate any hydrogen sulfide problems.

Question: Has there been an increase in deposition caused by Arana Gulch run-off in recent years, or does this date back to the creation of the harbor?

Answer: Yes..there seems to have been an increase in amount of materials that are entering the harbor. The Arana Gulch Watershed Plan details the sources of these sediments. Most of the problem stems from erosion on city and privately owned lands.

Question: If sediment traps were installed, what portion of the sediment would be contained before it entered the harbor?

Answer: There is only 1 sediment trap in the Arana Watershed. It can trap a volume of only 300 cu yards and can only be emptied one time a year due to steelhead habitat restrictions. If all the planned sediment basins were built it is estimated that perhaps 1500 cubic yards would be trapped of the estimated 5000+ cubic yards that enters the harbor in a normal wet winter season. There are currently investigations into expanding the one existing sediment trap and redesigning it so it could be emptied several times per year without impacting the steelhead habitat.

Question: Why was the Friends of the Harbor Group involved with the Twin Lakes State beach fire ring contamination issue? What does it have to do with dredging?

Answer: In case you are wondering why FOHG was involved with this issue, the explanation is that unsubstantiated claims were being made that arsenic and chromium contamination of a residence was occuring as a direct result of the Santa Cruz Harbor dredging program. Until FOHG's discovery and tests which showed that significant amount of arsenic and chromium contamination was being released by the burning of CCA pressure treated wood at the beach fire rings, the dredging program was the sole focus of the investigation of this contamination. You can read a summary of press coverage of this issue by going to the FOHG-horn News and following the links to the news stories

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