The efforts to bring the waves back to Long Beach by dismantling and reconfiguring the city’s massive breakwater sheltering its shores, and redirecting the mouth of the Los Angeles River is receiving help from the federal government, with the US Army Corps of Engineers lending its support to the $8.3-million study spread over four years.

The Corps’ decision to help and which is a part of a 31-page report released Monday, spells victory for both surfers and conservationists alike, who for years have blamed the 2.2-mile rock barricade from the World War II-era, for trapping water pollution, weakening waves and making Long Beach the least popular and the most polluted beaches in the area.

According the report’s conclusions, altering the breakwater and river mouth will help improve the quality and clarity of water, including circulation, which will help improve conditions for swimming and surfing, including restoring the kelp and reef habitat in the area.

The Long Beach City Council will debate Tuesday whether to pay half the cost of the Corps’ extensive analysis i.e. $4.1 million, of how removal of parts of the breakwater will affect beach front neighbourhoods, the quality of water, the height of waves, port infrastructure, seashore ecology and the local economy.

The agency also will also study whether the rocks removed from the breakwater can be used for constructing kelp beds, reef habitat and a structure for redirecting discharge from the Los Angeles River away from the Long Beach shoreline.

On completion of the study, any project the Corps may wish to pursue will require congressional approval. The 35% of the cost the city will be responsible for could reach $310 million.

However, the proposed study has been denounced by business leaders as being far too expensive for a city that faces a $18.5-million projected budget shortfall.

Those who support the sinking of the breakwater say the cost is minuscule compared to the dollars its beaches will generate in terms of tourism, business and recreation, when they are cleaner and the waves bigger.

Till the creation of the breakwater in 1949 to protect the US Navy’s Pacific Fleet head-quartered there before moving to San Diego, the city was one of Southern California;s top beach destinations, complete with Pike, its own Coney Islandesque amusement park.

After which, the waves quite disappeared, so did the surfers, swimmers and tourists, and the breakwater only served to trap industrial discharge, untreated run-off and trash from the city’s storm drains and from the Los Angeles River.

The Council will be discussing the issue of the study Tuesday.