Precedent-setting efforts to clean up some of the most contaminated sediment in San Diego Bay will move ahead as planned after water-pollution officials yesterday rejected a proposal that could have further delayed the project.

"I'd like to see the bay cleaned up before I die," said Richard Wright, a member of the San Diego Regional Water Quality Control Board.

The board voted unanimously to continue with a $96 million preliminary cleanup order issued in April rather than trying to set targets for how clean the sediment needs to be. The board is expected to rely on guidelines it has used in more than a half- dozen similar orders issued since the mid-1980s.

For the first time, the agency's staff said yesterday that it aims to provide a detailed technical explanation of the tentative cleanup order by mid-November. That keystone document will set the stage for debate about standards, cleanup methods, costs and who pays the bill.

The most optimistic estimate is that a final cleanup order will be issued next spring, although everyone involved in the high- stakes case expects it to end up in court.

Board members yesterday acknowledged the need to establish standards for sediment pollution, but said their first priority is to issue a final cleanup mandate at the shipyard site.

Sediment contamination at the site has been reviewed for more than a decade. "It's been delay after delay after delay," said Janet Keller, a board member from Laguna Beach.

In April, the board's staff told shipbuilders National Steel & Shipbuilding Co. and Southwest Marine -- now known as BAE Systems San Diego Ship Repair -- that they were on the hook for cleaning up decades-old toxins and heavy metals on roughly 60 acres of the bay. Other parties named in the order are Chevron, BP, the Navy, San Diego Gas & Electric Co., the City of San Diego and the parent companies of a former bayside tenant named San Diego Marine Construction Corp.

It was the most sweeping order of its kind in San Diego history.

Pollution officers said 885,000 cubic yards of tainted sediment just south of the San Diego-Coronado Bridge needs to be removed or covered to protect fish and people who use the bay. That probably would mean dredging the bay's bottom and disrupting shipyard work at a substantial cost to the companies.

The proposal for determining sediment-quality standards came from an agency team that advised board members about how to handle shipyard cleanup. The team said bay sediment standards "would be a strong basis for the subsequent establishment of scientifically based, enforceable, final cleanup levels" at the shipyard site.

Because of the complex nature of the case, another team inside the agency will draft the final cleanup order and will try to convince the board of the order's merits. Cleanup team leaders said diverting energy toward dredging goals likely would take years of research and litigation.

The road ahead for the shipyard site remains mostly uncharted, which concerns Laura Hunter at the Environmental Health Coalition in National City. She praised the board for staying on course, but said the the lack of a detailed schedule is troubling.

"We want to see a clear, specific deadline that gets us from here to a (final) decision," Hunter said.

NASSCO attorney David Mulliken said he's ready to move ahead with a debate about the proposed cleanup order, the once regional board staff produces a detailed explanation for the April draft order.

"The delay that we find frustrating . . . is the staff's inability to articulate any reasoned and factually supportable basis for what is proposed," he said.

Next up, the board and its attorneys will set the ground rules for debating the merits of the preliminary plan.

Mike Lee: (619) 542-4570; mike.lee@uniontrib.com