The Haines Borough cleared a final hurdle for expanding parking and building new restrooms at the Port Chilkoot Dock Wednesday when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers issued a permit for the work.
Bids on the $2 million job will be reviewed and a contract is expected to be awarded at the borough assembly meeting July 13. Construction is scheduled to begin Sept. 16.
Progress on the project had become stuck this week in negotiations between the Corps and borough over a proposed environmental mitigation plan.
The borough proposed to pull about 100 old pilings near the dock and rebuild a culvert on Comstock Road in exchange for impacts on aquatic resources resulting from expansion of the parking area.
According to borough facility director Brad Maynard, the Corps agreed to the Comstock Road work, but wanted an additional 500 feet of tidal pools put in along the borough’s section of Port Chilkoot beachfront.
Maynard said the Corps’ proposed work would include adding large rocks in the tidal area, diminishing downtown’s only sandy beach, a favorite summer spot of residents.
“We don’t have a problem doing it. We just don’t want to do it right in front of town,” Maynard said.
The Corps oversees so-called “mitigation” work associated with projects affecting bodies of water. The proposal had to be approved by the Corps before construction work could proceed. The dock project, which includes fill, will impact .75 acre of beachfront intertidal area.
On Wednesday, the Corps agreed to allow tidal restoration to take place away from Port Chilkoot. Removal of pilings will not be required.
Earlier this week Maynard said the borough couldn’t easily propose using another sandy beach for the work because it doesn’t have one. Creating tidal pools on a section of beach owned by the state would require state permits, which would add 30 days to the process, Maynard said.
Under Wednesday’s agreement, the borough gets 60 days to send a draft mitigation plan to the Corps to restore and enhance habitat on a half-acre of existing sandy, gravel, intertidal shoreline.
“We have to determine a piece of property that will meet those requirements,” Maynard said. The borough will look at state land if no acceptable borough property can be located, he said.
In a recent interview, Heidi Firstencel, supervisor of the Corps’ Juneau office, said mitigation work generally must be commensurate to the value of lost resources, based on federal law that projects result in no net loss of aquatic resource functions.
“The question, is how does removing the piles offset the impacts? They’re ugly, but that doesn’t address aquatic resource functions.” The piles may be leaching creosote but they also may be providing habitat to muscles and barnacles and serving as perches for eagles, she said.
The Comstock Road culvert project would help return fish to the Henderson property on the north side of the road. It would replace a 24-inch pipe that crosses Comstock Road connecting properties owned by Bob Henderson and Daphne Ormerod.
The culvert is perched three feet above the streambed on the side south of the road, preventing fish passage to Henderson’s property. It’s also at a steep grade that inhibits fish passage, according to Emily Cowles, executive director of Takshanuk Watershed Council.
The borough’s plan is to replace the culvert with two, 48-inch ones, side-by-side, to allow passage of spawning cutthroat now below the culvert, and possibly Dolly Varden char and coho as well. The culverts will be built with baffles to slow flow and ease fish passage.
Fish can sometimes leap to reach overhanging water sources, but the span between the stream and the culvert at Comstock is too wide, Cowles said.
Culvert improvement there has been a goal for local biologists for decades and the work is estimated to cost $67,000. Resident Grant Moore built a fish ladder at the spot more than a decade ago, but it didn’t survive.
“The improvements would access quite a bit of habitat upstream,” Cowles said. “Sea-run spawning cutthroat streams are pretty rare. They’re not everywhere.” The group received a state grant in 2008 to design the work, which will include significant downstream channel shaping and bank sloping.
Maynard said there may be close to 500 pilings at the beach, including stubs, but the borough will likely now leave the piling removal work to the Chilkoot Indian Association. The tribe has been involved in cleanup of industrial junk and potential munitions along the beach, where a hand grenade was discovered three years ago.
The borough plans to get enough of the parking lot fill and pad done to build restrooms during the winter. Paving and finish work would be done in the spring, in advance of visits by cruise ships, Maynard said.