West Coast’s first water wheel is scooping up trash from Upper Newport Bay

In just its first few weeks in operation, a low-tech water wheel has already scooped up enough trash and debris from the Upper Newport Bay to fill nine dumpsters — including a mattress and more than 50 spray paint cans.

The water wheel — the first of its kind on the West Coast — was officially unveiled on Friday, March 7, with a ribbon cutting and doting city and state officials. Modeled after a system in the Baltimore Harbor, the $5.5 million water wheel will keep refuse washing from inland sources out of the protected nature preserve, as well as the Newport Harbor and the ocean, and off beaches, officials said.

The wheel is strategically positioned in the San Diego Creek about 800 feet upstream from the Upper Newport Preserve. It is expected to capture 80% of the floating trash and debris from the San Diego Creek. Depending on rainfall, between 100 and 500 tons of trash reach the Upper Newport Bay via San Diego Creek annually.

“It’s incredibly gratifying,” said John Kappeler, the city’s senior engineer, who said the idea of the wheel was first presented to city staff in 2015. “The permitting, the regulatory agencies, approvals and engineering took a long time; everything just took a long time. To finally get to the finish line is beyond gratifying.”

The water wheel sits on a floating platform that rises and falls with the tide. Guide piles secure the platform to the creek bottom. The platform holds the large, 14-foot wheel that will spin using power from the river current or solar panels to scoop up debris and move a conveyor belt that carries it to an awaiting dumpster.

The wheel is currently powered by a generator, but in the next month, solar panels will be added along with a cover that will conceal the trash and debris it’s collecting. CR&R, the city’s trash hauler, donated the dumpsters to hold the trash and is also hauling it away for free, said Kappler.

Former Newport Beach Mayor Duffy Duffield spearheaded bringing the wheel to the bay, starting as a member of the city’s Water Quality and Tidelands Commission and later on the City Council and with the Harbor Foundation.

He was among many who attended the unveiling on Friday and celebrated that the wheel was up and running.

“Good things take so long to do,” he said.

While the recent rain storms demonstrated what the wheel could do, Duffield explained what got him going on the concept was all the trash that comes down the San Diego Creek during “dry water flow” events. As a surfer, he said, he saw the results in the ocean.

“All the cities north of us — six cities — bring their nuisance water to the San Diego Creek every day,” he said. “So, when you multiply that many people, that many storm drains you’re emptying into the creek, it’s the daily trash that’s really a nuisance. We are now able to trap 100% of that trash that goes every day, seven days a week.”

“It’s done, it’s cool, it’s gonna be there a lot of years, it’s gonna do a great job,” he said. “I’m thrilled it finally happened.”

He also noted that another type of trash interceptor is at work about half a mile away in the Santa Ana Delhi Channel, where the county put in a trash separator.

“They put it there about three years ago at a great cost and expense to the county,” he said. “So now the two polluting creeks, we’re now officially capturing 90% of the trash and vegetation that comes out of those two channels and that is a great accomplishment for our little city.”

Also there on Friday was former Newport Beach mayor and now state Assemblymember Diane Dixon, R-Newport Beach.

“Today is a great day,” she said, adding she’s been part of the effort since serving on the council and as chair of the city’s Water Quality Committee.

“This trash wheel will greatly improve our regional efforts,” she said, “to prevent trash and debris from entering the ocean.”