San Pedro Bay is an inlet on the Pacific Ocean

Pacific Ocean

The Pacific Ocean is the largest of the Earth's oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic in the north to the Southern Ocean in the south, bounded by Asia and Australia in the west, and the Americas in the east.At 165.2 million square kilometres in area, this largest division of the World...

 coast of southern California

California

California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

, United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

. It is the site of the Port of Los Angeles

Port of Los Angeles

The Port of Los Angeles, also called Los Angeles Harbor and WORLDPORT L.A, is a port complex that occupies of land and water along of waterfront. The port is located on San Pedro Bay in the San Pedro neighborhood of Los Angeles, approximately south of downtown...

 and the Port of Long Beach

Port of Long Beach

The Port of Long Beach, also known as Long Beach’s Harbor Department, is the 2nd busiest container port in the USA. It adjoins the separate Port of Los Angeles. Acting as a major gateway for U.S.-Asian trade, the port occupies of land with of waterfront in the city of Long Beach, California...

, which together form the fifth-busiest port

Port

A port is a location on a coast or shore containing one or more harbors where ships can dock and transfer people or cargo to or from land....

 facility in the world (behind the ports of Shanghai

Shanghai

Shanghai is the largest city by population in China and the largest city proper in the world. It is one of the four province-level municipalities in the People's Republic of China, with a total population of over 23 million as of 2010...

, Singapore

Singapore

Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...

, Hong Kong

Hong Kong

Hong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...

, and Shenzhen

Shenzhen

Shenzhen is a major city in the south of Southern China's Guangdong Province, situated immediately north of Hong Kong. The area became China's first—and one of the most successful—Special Economic Zones...

) and easily the busiest in the Western Hemisphere. The community of San Pedro, Los Angeles forms the western side of the bay, and shares the name.

Seabed

Most of the bay is between ten and twenty mt (32 and 75 feet) deep. The seabed near Long Beach has experienced considerable subsidence

Subsidence

Subsidence is the motion of a surface as it shifts downward relative to a datum such as sea-level. The opposite of subsidence is uplift, which results in an increase in elevation...

 as a result of oil extraction in the Wilmington Field

Wilmington Oil Field

The Wilmington Oil Field is a large petroleum field in Los Angeles County in southern California in the United States in terms of cumulative oil produced. Discovered in 1932, it is the third largest oil field in the United States...

 from the 1950s onward. Ironically, this helped the Port of Long Beach surpass the Port of Los Angeles as the leading port in the United States for a time in the 1980s and 1990s, since the deeper seafloor meant that Long Beach could accommodate ships with deeper drafts than could Los Angeles. Dredging operations related to the construction of a gigantic new marine terminal at the Port of Los Angeles have since made both sides of the bay accessible to even the largest existing container ship

Container ship

Container ships are cargo ships that carry all of their load in truck-size intermodal containers, in a technique called containerization. They form a common means of commercial intermodal freight transport.-History:...

s.

Islands

Natural islands in San Pedro Bay include Terminal Island

Terminal Island

Terminal Island is an island located in Los Angeles County, California between Los Angeles Harbor and Long Beach Harbor. Originally a mudflat known to the Spanish as Isla Raza de Buena Gente, and later called Rattlesnake Island, it has officially been Terminal Island since 1918...

 (actually an augmented mudflat

Mudflat

Mudflats or mud flats, also known as tidal flats, are coastal wetlands that form when mud is deposited by tides or rivers. They are found in sheltered areas such as bays, bayous, lagoons, and estuaries. Mudflats may be viewed geologically as exposed layers of bay mud, resulting from deposition of...

), the site of much of Los Angeles' and Long Beach's port facilities, and Mormon

Mormonism

Mormonism is the religion practiced by Mormons, and is the predominant religious tradition of the Latter Day Saint movement. This movement was founded by Joseph Smith, Jr. beginning in the 1820s as a form of Christian primitivism. During the 1830s and 1840s, Mormonism gradually distinguished itself...

 Island, the site of an abortive settlement attempt by San Bernardino

San Bernardino, California

San Bernardino is a city located in the Riverside-San Bernardino metropolitan area , and serves as the county seat of San Bernardino County, California, United States...

-based Mormon pioneers in the 1850s. Land reclamation

Land reclamation

Land reclamation, usually known as reclamation, is the process to create new land from sea or riverbeds. The land reclaimed is known as reclamation ground or landfill.- Habitation :...

 operations by Los Angeles have considerably enlarged Terminal Island, as well as linking Mormon Island to the mainland. The historic Deadman's Island

Deadman's Island (San Pedro)

Deadman's Island was one of two islands near San Pedro, Los Angeles, California in the 19th century. The land, sometimes referenced as Dead Man's Island, Isla Del Muerto, and Reservation Point, was dredged away in 1928 as part of a harbor development effort...

 sat at a landmark at the foot of the Bay, but was removed in 1928 as part of the effort to enlarge the harbor.

Four small artificial islands containing oil well

Oil well

An oil well is a general term for any boring through the earth's surface that is designed to find and acquire petroleum oil hydrocarbons. Usually some natural gas is produced along with the oil. A well that is designed to produce mainly or only gas may be termed a gas well.-History:The earliest...

s are scattered around the bay near Long Beach. The oil drilling equipment itself is masked by tropical landscaping, architectural features and fake high-rise "buildings" in an attempt to improve their appearance from shore. These islands, named Oil Islands Freeman, Grissom, White, and Chaffee, are named for Theodore Freeman

Theodore Freeman

Theodore Cordy Freeman was a NASA astronaut and a captain in the United States Air Force. He was killed in the crash of a T-38 jet, marking the first fatality among the American astronaut corps...

, the first United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 NASA

NASA

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research...

 astronaut

Astronaut

An astronaut or cosmonaut is a person trained by a human spaceflight program to command, pilot, or serve as a crew member of a spacecraft....

 to die during flight, and for Virgil I. Grissom, Ed White

Edward Higgins White

Edward Higgins White, II was an engineer, United States Air Force officer and NASA astronaut. On June 3, 1965, he became the first American to "walk" in space. White died along with fellow astronauts Gus Grissom and Roger Chaffee during a pre-launch test for the first manned Apollo mission at...

, and Roger B. Chaffee

Roger B. Chaffee

Roger Bruce Chaffee was an American aeronautical engineer and a NASA astronaut in the Apollo program. Chaffee died along with fellow astronauts Gus Grissom and Ed White during a pre-launch test for the Apollo 1 mission at Cape Kennedy...

, who were killed by a fire during the Apollo One mission.

Breakwater

A 13.6 kilometres (8.5 mi) long breakwater

Breakwater (structure)

Breakwaters are structures constructed on coasts as part of coastal defence or to protect an anchorage from the effects of weather and longshore drift.-Purposes of breakwaters:...

 stretches across most of the bay, with two openings to allow ships to enter the port areas behind it. The initial western section of the breakwater, called the San Pedro Breakwater, was constructed between 1899 and 1911 at San Pedro; the Middle breakwater was completed over the next twenty-five years, and the Long Beach

Long Beach, California

Long Beach is a city situated in Los Angeles County in Southern California, on the Pacific coast of the United States. The city is the 36th-largest city in the nation and the seventh-largest in California. As of 2010, its population was 462,257...

 breakwater was finished after World War II.

Restoration topics

The Long Beach breakwater is the target of controversy within the harbor towns and greater Los Angeles

Greater Los Angeles Area

The Greater Los Angeles Area, or the Southland, is a term used for the Combined Statistical Area sprawled over five counties in the southern part of California, namely Los Angeles County, Orange County, San Bernardino County, Riverside County and Ventura County...

 conservationist

Conservationist

Conservationists are proponents or advocates of conservation. They advocate for the protection of all the species in an ecosystem with a strong focus on the natural environment...

s community; with various environmental groups, including the Long Beach chapter of the Surfrider Foundation, proposing modifying or removing the breakwater to promote better water flows and a more natural coastal environment at the mouth of the Los Angeles River

Los Angeles River

The Los Angeles River is a river that starts in the San Fernando Valley, in the Simi Hills and Santa Susana Mountains, and flows through Los Angeles County, California, from Canoga Park in the western end of the San Fernando Valley, nearly southeast to its mouth in Long Beach...

. This restoration ecology

Restoration ecology

-Definition:Restoration ecology is the scientific study and practice of renewing and restoring degraded, damaged, or destroyed ecosystems and habitats in the environment by active human intervention and action, within a short time frame...

based removal is opposed by waterfront property owners and shippers, who consider that the breakwater provides needed protection from storm damage.

A short documentary addressing the issues surrounding the reconfiguration of the Long Beach breakwater is currently in progress.
"Mother Wants Her Beauty Back"