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Hankla may have been within his rights, but once he starts using the Port's money and resources to study the issue, there is at minimum a duplication of effort, and at worst an attempt to replace Moffat & Nichol's report with their own, or if not replace, then at least compete.
I have no problem with a "second opinion," but shouldn't it really be that? In other words, don't you need a first opinion first?
And why should either the Council or PoLB encourage only an inhouse or a single external contractor to study San Pedro Bay structure and reconfig possibilities? One would think that many academic computer modeling and engineering departments could be encouraged to put their students and interns to work and cheaply produce varioius studies. Indeed, some years ago a rather good initial student study was for a while web-posted by Surfrider.
For decades, until a few years ago, in the SF Bay, the Army Corps of Engineers maintained an SF Bay Model which (besides still being a tourist attraction) was then used to generate all kinds of studies and reports, testing all kinds of reconfigurations of all kinds of existing and possible new structures in SF Bay. Unlike the LB Council and PoLB's long-insistent 11-th century attitude about possibilities here in San Pedro Bay - i.e. that ignorance and status quo are the divinely ordained sides of the unique coin of bliss - the attitude in SF Bay was that more knowledge about possibilities was always a good thing.
By the way, just because the Corps has control of the breakwater doesn't mean what was so long assumed here in LB: that anyone else can't credibly study it, and to boot must wait for suitable Congressional funding and directives to the Corps.
One thing that seems to have escaped attention is that possible beneficial reconfigs can concern more than just the east breakwater: they may well involve other other existing or potential structures. Another thing that apparently has escaped attention is that net benefits many be of different kinds, and therefore the 'best' answer will depend on the driving questions and on the assumptions. In particular, questions may concern not only surf restoration and pollution flushing, but also how do we deal with tsunami threats, and in particular how are we planning for the decades-hence future waterworld that, given present City Hall policies, will be the fate of many Long Beach neighborhoods? A future in which - thanks to the global warming promoted by continued carbon combustion from the likes of PolB's global trade and Boeing's massive air transport - enterprises heavily fostered (pun OK) by LB City Hall - Greenland ice will melt or float away, thereby raising sea level 8 meters (25 feet).
Similarly, during the August 27th meeting of the Los Cerritos Wetlands Authority (LCWA), Chairman DeLong was questioned by Samuel Schuchat, a LCWA Boardmember and the Executive Officer of the Coastal Conservancy, about his negotiations in Washington D.C., supposedly on behalf of the LCWA. Councilman Delong reported that he was near completing a deal whereby the Port would pay to restore the Los Cerritos wetlands. In return, the Port would be granted pollution mitigation credits to allow further Port expansion without having to offset the pollution created by the expansions. Mr. Schuchat bluntly asked Chairman DeLong why he was focused on restoring wetlands that the LCWA did not own. In reality, he was asking LCWA Chairman DeLong why he was providing pollution mitigation credits to the Port when he should have been working to purchase the Los Cerritos wetlands property. Councilman DeLong, what is your interest in supporting Port expansion with unchecked pollution? Why haven’t you asked your constituents which is more important, clean wetlands or clean air?