Local News in Brief : Congress OKs Breakwater Funds

As a preliminary step to raising the breakwater that protects Redondo Beach’s King Harbor, the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives this week approved spending $500,000 on preconstruction engineering and design for the breakwater, said City Manager Tim Casey.

The expenditure is part of the $1.1-trillion budget passed by the Congress. City officials and business owners, who have been asking the Army Corps of Engineers to raise the 3/4-mile-long jetty for at least 10 years, say the breakwater was too low to protect the harbor from a fierce January storm that caused $17 million in damage.

Under the plans, the city and the federal government each would pay for half of the estimated $5-million cost of raising the breakwater and extending a jetty at the southern mouth of the harbor.