https://www.stripes.com/news/navy/150-million-seal-beach-naval-project-would-change-way-turtles-travel-to-the-ocean-1.582366

SEAL BEACH, Calif. (Tribune News Service) — Biologists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration were out in a small channel at the Naval Weapons Station Seal Beach on a recent cool and windy day watching for signs of an entangled Eastern Pacific green sea turtle.

Entanglements don’t typically thrill biologists, but these planned net captures were key to their research.

The threatened green turtles live and forage on eelgrass within the nearly 1,000-acre Seal Beach National Wildlife Refuge, the only such refuge on a military installation in the nation.

The Navy and NOAA are studying the sea turtles as part of a proposed $150 million naval project to relocate the base’s ammunition wharf. The reconfiguration would provide greater installation security and improve safety for private boaters and nearby communities. The 5,000-acre base is responsible for weapons storage, loading and maintenance for ships of the United States Pacific Fleet.

Construction could begin by the end of the year, pending final approvals, with completion by 2025.

On this particular day, three sea turtles were caught in large nets draped underwater and stretched across a small entrance channel near the Seventh Street pond. The channel is part of a network of water that stretches across the southern end of the base to Huntington Harbour, then under the Pacific Coast Highway bridge and into Anaheim Bay.

Jeff Seminoff, marine ecologist and leader of the NOAA’s Marine Turtle Ecology and Assessment Program at the Southwest Fishery Science Center in La Jolla, and his team, are working with Navy biologists to study the turtles’ habitat and lifestyle.

For now, the sea turtles travel along the channel into the bay and to the ocean, but the Navy’s project would change their route.

Officials at the base, which provides ammunition to about 40 ships a year, want to dismantle the more than 60-year-old ammunition wharf and build a new ammunition pier in a different location. Naval operations are limited by the condition of the existing wharf. The Navy expects to service more ships once the new project is done.

The new pier would allow larger ships to more safely enter Anaheim Bay for loading and unloading. The project also would create a new public boat navigation channel farther from Navy operations and would move ammunition loading away from Pacific Coast Highway, increasing safety for nearby communities, said Gregg Smith, spokesman for the naval base