Just over a year after Haines’ former harbormaster recommended closing it, and nearly 50 years since it first went into service – the Letnikof Dock has broken beyond what borough staff are willing to repair.
On Nov. 22, acting harbormaster Jeremiah Kinison alerted the assembly and interim borough manager Elke Doom that a pipe float in the U-shaped portion of the dock had snapped in two, leaving both sections bobbing in the waves.
But, removing the dock is a complicated task made more complicated by bad weather. Public facilities director Brad Jensen said he and others have been working on a plan to spend as little as possible getting the dock secured.
“We’ll likely beach it and then work on cutting it up and getting ready to move it from there,” Jensen said. “The difficulty is that it’s anchored to the bottom so what we don’t know yet is whether we need a diver to disconnect the chains.”
If costs reach the $25,000 mark, then the project will have to go in front of the assembly for approval.
If that happens, Jensen said he’d likely put out a call for proposals and then the assembly will have to vote on a plan for removal.
He said he’s gotten several concerned phone calls and wants to be clear that there are six anchors holding it in place so the separated sections are not likely to swing around and cause damage to other infrastructure there.
“It looks terrible, but I don’t think it’s going anywhere,” he said.
Still, in the immediate aftermath of the failure in late November, while staff worked out a plan for how to respond, Kinison visited the dock each day to keep an eye on it.
Then, last week, former harbormaster Shawn Bell and his replacement, Henry Pollan, chained and ran lines from the north side of the float to the west side of the float, so if one side breaks free it will still be attached and will not damage anything nearby.
Pollan asked that boaters stay away from the structure while borough staff figure out the best way to get it out of the water.
“It’s not safe for people to be boating out and walking on it right now,” he said.
The borough is working on a long-term plan to replace the dock. Preliminary estimates when it was closed last year showed that it could cost about $3 million. Jensen said the replacement project is in the design phase now, then they’ll have to find funding and go through an assembly process for approval.
But that is not likely to happen before next summer meaning there will likely not be a dock there next summer.
“My gut feeling is likely no,” he said. “There’s definitely an impact to folks who are accustomed to using that float. I can’t really say how long it will be before the new one is installed.”
The dock sits just across the cove from Haines Packing Company, the Chilkat Valley’s only fish processor.
It’s popular with subsistence and commercial fishermen and those are the first people Haines borough assembly member Gabe Thomas thought about when faced with the prospect of spending a season without the dock.
“That’s the number one subsistence dock,” he said. “Some guys will set skates and leave their gear out and leave their boat tied up. There’s a lot of shrimping going on.”
Thomas said the dock provides a cheaper alternative to other facilities in town.