Bolstered by an additional $3.4 million in funding secured by state Rep. Bill Thomas, R-Haines, the Haines Borough has nearly $6 million to devote to rebuilding the Port Chilkoot Dock.
The project, initially scheduled for this summer, will wait until 2013 to coincide with about $1 million in improvements to the municipality’s Letnikof Dock, harbormaster Phil Benner said this week.
Both jobs will require bringing a marine construction outfit to Haines. “All of it will happen at once. This will save us hundreds of thousands of dollars in mobilization costs,” Benner said.
Besides replacing aging pier pilings at the cruise ship dock, the additional $3.4 million will allow the borough to replace the aging dock “apron,” the wide section toward the end that once supported a warehouse.
The timber pilings under that section of the dock are likely as rotten as decaying wooden ones under the pier, municipal officials have said. All the structure’s wooden pilings will be replaced by galvanized, metal ones, Benner said.
Also, the dock’s 17-year-old gangway will be replaced by a longer one, eliminating a steep grade that’s proved daunting to some older visitors departing from cruise ferry vessels.
The aging gangway will go to Letnikof, where it will be installed to reduce the grade of the ramp there now, Benner said. That will require lopping off about 40 feet of the Letnikof pier, he said.
Other Letnikof work will include replacing the gangway float to accommodate the longer and heavier ramp, and replacing anchors, chains and decking. Pilings at the facility that have leaned over may be replaced with finned ones that hold better in deep mud in the sea floor there, Benner said.