About $2.9 million the Haines Borough has set aside for the Port Chilkoot Dock trestle replacement won’t be enough to pay for the job, according to new estimates from PND Engineers, Inc.
PND figures sent to the borough this week show that the minimum cost of replacing the pier to the cruise ship dock is $3.5 million, and the cost of the alternative preferred by borough planners is $4.5 million.
If tests results due next week show that pilings under the main dock need replacing, the cost of needed improvements grows to $5.42 million and $5.15 million, respectively.
Borough facilities director Brad Maynard this week said it was “dubious” that pilings under the main dock aren’t rotten, as they’re about 50 years old — abaout the same age of the trestle pilings needing replacing. That’s about the limit for creosote timbers in such a setting, he said. “They have little life left.”
Where the additional funds would come from isn’t clear. Borough manager Mark Earnest said this week that some funds were remaining from previous appropriations for the dock, including $2.2 million for restrooms and parking lot expansion.
Those funds, as well as the $2.9 million for trestle repairs, came from cruise ship head tax regional impact funds, a source of money eliminated by Gov. Sean Parnell and the Alaska Legislature last year.
“Then we’re looking for additional funding through additional legislative requests,” Earnest said.
Facilities chief Maynard said previous PND estimates for trestle replacement were made in 2009 for a 16-foot-wide pier, about the width of the existing one. The new plan is to widen the pier to 20 feet, which would allow vehicles and pedestrians to cross at the same time.
The earlier estimates also didn’t include needed electrical work and some alternates including a new, 8’-by-100’ gangway to the dock’s lightering float. The existing gangway, installed in 1988, is steep and difficult for some visitors to negotiate.
Replacing dock pilings would be the fourth and largest improvement at the dock in 25 years. In 1988, the City of Haines spent $1 million shoring up the dock face and adding a lightering float to accommodate small cruise ships. In 1995, a $2.3 million project extended the dock 120 feet and added mooring dolphins so large ships could tie up there.
This week, paving was completed on a parking lot expansion and restroom project budgeted at $2.2 million.
Maynard said replacing support should have been addressed earlier but wasn’t a priority for the previous borough administrator.
A dock built by the Army at Fort Seward has been rebuilt several times.
According to Port Chilkoot Co. president Lee Heinmiller, the creosote pilings now supporting the dock were part of a major reconstruction in the 1960s, when it was owned by the Canadian firm White Pass. The City of Haines bought the dock in the 1970s, he said.