Newport Beach Trash Interceptor

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Project Highlights

Expected initiation of operation: January 2025
Location: In San Diego Creek 800 feet East of Jamboree Road Bridge, Newport Beach
Best Place to View: Park on Eastbluff Drive near Jamboree Road. Cross Jamboree Road and walk north toward the Jamboree Road Bridge. Just before the bridge, turn right onto the bicycle path. The Trash Interceptor will come into view on the opposite bank of the San Diego Creek. Caution: Watch for bicyclists racing by!
Project cost (planning, design, permits and construction): $5.5 million
Expected annual trash and debris capture: 300 to 1000 cubic yards
Power Sources: Landside photovoltaics panels, Trash Wheel photovoltaics panels, Creek Flow
Funding Partners:
- City of Newport Beach
- Department of Water Resources
- Help your Harbor/Surfrider Foundation
- Ocean Protection Council
- Orange County Transportation Authority

Design Engineer: Burns & McDonnell
Construction Contractor: Jilk Heavy Construction
Facility Manager: Public Works Department – Municipal Operation Division

Project Information Sections

Introductory Comments
Project Location
Trash Interceptor Project Components
How Does the Trash Wheel Capture Trash?
What is the source of trash and debris into Newport Bay and where does it accumulate?
Site Restoration
Project Contacts

Introductory Comments

Water quality and water clarity in Newport Bay is excellent and continues to improve. The last major challenge is addressing floating trash that can been seen in the Harbor where it accumulates around docks and, more importantly, in Upper Bay where trash is caught up within the sensitive intertidal habitat along the banks of the bay.

The City has an extensive trash clean-up program to keep City streets clean and reduce the amount of trash entering the storm drain system. The City has installed trash collecting screens and inserts in catch basin and in-line trash capturing devices to capture trash that does enter the storm drain system. The City has also installed six floating trash skimmers around the harbor to trap floating trash.

However, the biggest sources of trash are the two freshwater creeks entering Upper Bay, namely San Diego Creek and the Santa Ana-Delhi Channel. To address trash entering the bay from the Santa Ana-Delhi Channel, which drains an 11-square mile watershed, in 2018 the City played a pivotal role in the construction of a full-capture trash facility located in the Newport Beach Golf Course adjacent to the Santa Ana-Delhi Channel (upstream of Mesa Drive and Irvine Avenue).

To address the trash entering Newport Bay from San Diego Creek, in 2015 the City began planning for a sustainably powered system to collect floating trash before it enters the bay. San Diego Creek drains a watershed that is approximately 120 square miles that includes a network of storm drains, creeks, and flood channels. This network provides drainage for seven cities located partly or fully within the subwatershed -- Irvine, Lake Forest, Laguna Hills, Laguna Woods, Orange, Santa Ana, and Tustin – along with several unincorporated areas of Orange County. The amount of trash and debris that enters this drainage network is transported by San Diego Creek ranges from 100 to 500 tons per year. As most of the trash is mobilized by storm events, heavier storm seasons mobilize larger quantities of trash sitting along the creek banks. The $5.5 million Trash Interceptor Project is expected to reduce the amount of floating waste entering the Upper Newport Bay via San Diego Creek by 80 percent. Figure 1 shows an artist’s conception of the proposed Trash Interceptor project.

The Trash Interceptor is in construction now and expected to be in operation for the 2024/25 rain season.

Figure 1: Newport Beach Trash Interceptor 3D Artistic Rendering.

Project Location

The Trash Interceptor project is located in San Diego Creek between the Jamboree Road Bridge and Highway 73, approximately 800 feet upstream of the Upper Newport Bay Nature Preserve.

Picture2 240417 Figure 2: Location for the Trash Interceptor Project.

Trash Interceptor Project Components

The Trash Interceptor Project consists of landside improvements and the floating Trash Wheel assembly. The Trash Wheel assembly includes a floating platform with a 14-foot steel waterwheel that is powered by the creek current and supplemented by a photovoltaic-powered pumping system. The floating Trash Wheel assembly is secured horizontally in place by guide piles (see Figure 3) designed to withstand storm flow forces and changes in water surface elevations. The waterwheel powers spring-loaded leaf rakes and conveyor belt system that pulls floating litter and debris from the creek and deposits the captured material onto a conveyor that lifts the trash into trash containers. A canopy covers the Trash Wheel to shade the system and reduce wind impacts.

Figure 3: The Trash Wheel rises and falls with the tides guided by three guide piles shown in white (artist rendering).

How Does the Trash Wheel Capture Trash?

Floating trash is collected as follows:

Two booms reaching across San Diego Creek direct floating trash toward the Trash Wheel (Figure 3).
A turning rake moves trash from the boom area to the conveyor belt (Figure 4).
Trash is lifted by the conveyor and deposited into two, 8 CY dumpsters that sit in a rail sled (Figures 5a and 5b).
When both dumpsters are full, the railway sled is winched landside to be emptied by a standard front loading trash truck (Figure 6) for haul off. Truck access to the loading area is via a graded paved access road to the creek bank from Jamboree Road (Figure 7).

Figure 4: The rotating forks of the rake move trash onto the conveyor that then lifts the trash and deposits it into two dumpster sitting on a rail sled. The rake and the conveyor belt are powered by the turning waterwheel.

Figure 5a: The waterwheel-powered conveyor deposits trash into the two dumpsters sitting in the trash sled.

Figures 5b: The waterwheel-powered conveyor deposits trash into the two dumpsters sitting in the trash sled.

Figure 6: The rail sled, carrying the two dumpsters, is winched landward when the dumpsters are full. A front-loading trash truck then directly collects that trash for haul off.

Figure 7: Trash truck access the turnaround area from Jamboree Road.

What is the source of trash and debris into Newport Bay and where does it accumulate?

Prior to 1969, Upper Newport Bay was a placid waterbody with no appreciable sources of creek flow entering the bay. Figure 8 shows a 1939 promotional advertising drawing of Newport Bay. Anecdotal evidence suggests trash was not in evidence in the bay. Figure 8: 1939 Promotional advertising for Newport Beach and Newport Bay.

The upper end of Newport Bay was developed into a commercial Salt Works (Figure 9) in 1934 to produce water softener salt. The plant remained in operation until 1969.

Figure 9: Salt Works in Upper Bay.

The 1969 storm event joined San Diego Creek to Newport Bay, connecting the 120 square mile tributary watershed into Newport Bay.

Figure 10: Watershed area now drained by San Diego Creek into Newport Bay.

With the rapid development of housing and commercial areas in the newly created City of Irvine (incorporated in 1970), San Diego Creek began transporting trash into Upper Bay where it accumulated along the shore (Figures 11 and 12), was captured by the boom at North Star Beach (Figure 13), migrated into the harbor to collect on beaches on docks, or was conveyed out the harbor jetty and carried along the coast by ocean littoral currents.

Picture11a Picture11b Figures 11a and 11b: In the 1990’s volunteer groups made attempts to clear some of the accumulated trash in the Upper Bay.

Figures 12a and 12b: Attempting to clear trash along the shoreline is not only cumbersome, but inevitably involves trampling of sensitive habitat.

Picture13a Picture13b Figures 13a and 13b: Trash collected and removed at the North Star Beach boom.

Rather than attempting to collect trash after it enters the bay, it would be more effective to capture trash before it enters the Bay. In 2015 it was suggested that a floating trash capture device similar to the successful Mr. Trash Wheel (Figures 14a and 14b) located in Baltimore Harbor, could be effective in capturing floating trash before it entered Newport Bay.

Figures 14a: Baltimore’s Mr. Trash Wheel. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr._Trash_Wheel

Picture14b Figures 14b: Baltimore’s Mr. Trash Wheel.

The design concept for the City of Newport Beach Trash Interceptor project has one significant difference from Baltimore’s Mr. Trash Wheel. Mr. Trash Wheel is built in Baltimore Harbor where a large dumpster, sitting in a floating barge, can be removed and replaced with a tugboat. Flow from San Diego Creek into Newport Bay is moderated by a riprap barrier that does not provide passage for a tugboat to access the Trash Wheel. Instead, the Trash Interceptor project includes a customized dumpster transfer system where a railway sled that carries two dumpsters can be winched landside for collection by a standard front-loading trash truck. The dumpster loading (wind out) position and the dumpster retracted (wind in) position for unloading are shown in Figure 15.

Figure 15: Empty dumpsters are positioned below the Trash Wheel conveyor for loading. When full, the rail sled that holds two dumpsters is winched landward where a frontloading trash truck unloads the dumpsters.

Site Restoration

The project’s habitat mitigation program enhances 0.75 acres of Diegan coastal sage scrub habitat (Figure 16) to offset the temporary and permanent impacts to existing native vegetation. The habitat enhancement on the north bank includes broadcasting a native plant hydroseed mix that includes mulefat, salt grass, alkali heath, pickleweed, seaside heliotrope, alkali Mallow, sagebrush, saltbush, coyote brush, coast sunflower, goldenbush, chaparral bus mallow and elderberry. 880 1-gallon plants are also installed on the north bank including native encelia, deerweed, buckwheat, chokeberry, bladderpod, bushmallow, lemonade berry, elder, and black sage. On the south bank, 64 15-gallon trees were planted and include black willow, cottonwood, sycamore, and arroyo willow. Figure 16: Restoration Plan for the north and south Banks of San Diego Creek.