By Tom Morphet
The Haines Borough is seeking $2 million in federal grants for the
first phase of improvements to the Small Boat Harbor, beginning with replacement of boat
floats.
"For the most part, we’re on a fishing expedition," said
manager Robert Venables.
The borough is requesting $1 million each from the federal Economic
Development Administration and from the Denali Commission. The Denali Commission money
would go toward replacing floats, including new electrical and plumbing systems, and the
main gangway.
The price tag of the float work – $4.2 million – would be
reached by using $1.6 million of the $3.4 million the borough received for taking
ownership of the harbor, and an equal amount that the state would match, Venables said.
The sentiments of fishermen and the deterioration make new floats a top
priority, he said. "What’s down there for electricity is almost dangerous."
Money from the EDA would go toward uplands development, including a
sheet pile wall on the harbor’s west side and a 28,000 square foot terrace in front
of and below a row of harbor-facing parking. The terrace would leave space for new cranes,
private development, or harbormaster needs.
The new wall would create 320 feet of transient moorage space,
including for large vessels, and help relieve congestion in the harbor. The EDA money must
promote economic development and uses for the space will be a topic in conversations with
harbor users, he said.
"We’ll be having a more intensive dialogue with harbor users
to see what uses and needs are, specifically what we can do to stimulate investment and
create new jobs," Venables said. The total pricetag for the uplands work is climbing
toward $4 million, and all the funding sources for that project have not yet been
identified.
Gillnetter Norman Hughes, who has been tracking the borough work,
agrees that replacing floats should be a top priority, saying that repairing them is
consuming too many harbor staff hours. "The floats are definitely a focus."
Hughes encouraged fishermen and other harbor users to become involved
in the process to help set priorities and steer planning, which he said was lacking in
previous work. The borough’s new ice house, he said, ideally would have been located
on the planned terrace, eliminating the need for a long ice chute.
"The public should look at the plan and help formulate the plan as
(the borough) is working through it," he said.
Towards that end, the boat harbor advisory committee will be meeting
soon, said borough assemblyman Doug Olerud, the borough’s liaison to the committee.
Olerud said fishermen also are pushing for repairs the grid, which have been postponed.
Due to a price tag that nearly tripled, the borough last summer
postponed plans to expand the harbor north toward Nukdik Point, instead deciding to
approach work in phases. It set as first priority repairing and making more room within
the existing basin.
The first phase of work at that time was roughly estimated at $7
million, but more refined and updated estimates have pushed up the price.
Venables said replacing the floats and gangway, replacing the net float
and extending that float 375 feet southward, and doing required dredging are projected to
cost $6 million, with dredging around the net float and fuel float alone costing more than
$1 million.
That doesn’t include dredging or other work to create the sheet
pile wall, grid repairs, a new sportboat ramp or "nose" and "stub"
breakwaters at the harbor entrance to reduce tidal action and protect the new boat ramp.
"The cost of the materials has escalated, from the components
being used to the mobilization and the fuel costs to get things here, but a lot of it is
sticker shock," Venables said. "We’ve been mostly talking about concepts up
to now."
Most daunting has been a $9 million estimate for the two short sections
of breakwater, if the ocean floor there is similarly soft to soils found north of the
harbor that tripled the estimated cost of a breakwater there. "We’re hoping
that’s not the case," Olerud said, but undersea geology can be the deciding
factor between plans and reality.
The borough stands to receive $750,000 from the state for the new boat
ramp, but if the protective breakwater costs too much, perhaps the existing sportboat ramp
should be improved to be broader and less steep, said fisherman Hughes. "If
we’re re-doing the whole inside of the harbor and dredging, why not?"
Venables said the borough also may seek money from state harbor grants
and federal rural development funds. If funding comes through, construction isn’t
likely to begin until 2009, Venables said.
The improvements have been a long time in coming, Olerud said. "It
stinks for fishermen because they’ve been waiting for a long time, and they were told
they were getting a new harbor. For the amount of money the fishermen bring into the
community, we need to upgrade the facilities they use to make a living."
The EDA grant application will be filed soon. The Denali Commission
request went out this week and is seeking one eighth of all money available statewide.
"This is a highly competitive grant."
