If you are curious about how ugly the giant steel wall going into Portage Cove will be, hold a steel trash can up to your face. (Not kidding.) Financially, it’s a nightmare. Also, when you build a giant steel wall in the ocean, there are maintenance and replacement costs being incurred by Haines Borough (You). It is like someone took out a loan and made you a co-signer on the loan, but you had no say in it. 

Now it is said you could have gone to the Ports and Harbors Advisory Committee meetings five years ago and said something. That’s true. You could have gone to the meetings, but no one would have listened. I was at those meetings as assistant harbormaster. God could have testified and said this was a dumb idea, and chairman Norm Hughes would have said: “Thank you, God. You can go back to heaven now.”

Another thing that makes no sense is that this project won’t even help the people it’s supposed to help – the harbor users. There’s no new slips and no drive-down work float – just increased costs. We don’t even need new slips. No one is waiting to use the harbor.

We could build a 200-foot-long rubble mound breakwater extension (rock, basically what is there now), do some dredging and call it a day with no future costs. Reality was robbed from the people. Pray for a miracle or watch your wallet burn. Have a good day.

Joe Parnell

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