Port Hueneme, CA – In a letter to Republican leaders in Washington D.C., Assemblyman Jeff Gorell (R-Camarillo) today asked Congress to support amendments to a water resources bill that will help repair major erosion damage to Hueneme Beach and prevent a recurrence of this year’s expensive disaster.

“The money sitting in the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund should have been used last year to prevent the disaster that has occurred to Hueneme Beach,” stated Assemblyman Gorell. “Rep. Brownley’s amendments will help to make sure that the problems we are facing now will not be repeated in the future. I have asked my fellow Republicans to help the city of Port Hueneme by including these amendments in the final water resources bill.”

A lack of funds was the reason cited last year by the Army Corps of Engineers when sand replenishment efforts at Hueneme Beach were halted early. Subsequent erosion rapidly erased the beloved local beach and threatened the homes and businesses beyond. The city of Port Hueneme has already spent $1 million in an emergency effort to begin construction of a boulder barricade against the relentless tides, a project which will be completed before winter with an additional $2 million in emergency state funds. Assemblyman Gorell led the effort in Sacramento to bring this issue to the attention of state legislators and to secure the emergency funding.

Unlike typical beach erosions in other areas, the rapid sand erosion problem on the Hueneme coast is a man-made phenomenon. Prior to the construction of the Port of Hueneme in 1939, the shoreline of Ventura County between what is now Port Hueneme and Point Mugu was considered to be stable. However, with the construction of the port’s channel and jetties, the natural migration of sand down the coast was disrupted, resulting in severe erosion problems at Hueneme Beach, Ormond Beach and Point Mugu Beach.

The problem was dealt with in the 1950s when the federal government built an offshore trap to store migrating sand and began conducting biennial dredging programs to move the captured sand back to the beaches where it belongs. In 1996, additional federal legislation recognized that the responsibility for the expense of this dredging and sand bypassing belongs to the federal government.

A PDF of Assemblyman Gorell’s letter is attached to this release.