Among the many projects on tap around Dillingham this spring and summer are a couple at the dock and harbor.
Port Director Jean Barrett the city is planning to repair the dock to rectify an issue that cropped up a couple years ago.
“The tug boat pushed millions of tons of barge into the dock too fast,” he said. “And the operator of the tug that was pushing Northland’s barge ran into the dock a little too hard. Damaged the barge also.”
That was in 2014. The city has been trying to get the tug company to agree to pay for the repairs ever since. Now Barrett said they’ve finally come to an agreement. And as long as someone is doing the work, Barrett said the city decided to tackle another project.
“We decided to sweeten the deal, not only fix the damage to our bumper pile and our crush point on top of the dock, but also to add dolphins to on both corners of the dock,” he said. “The price would be right because we’d already have someone up here with all of their equipment, and they’d just have to bring in material to put the dolphins in.”
It’ll cost about $113,000 dollars to fix the bumper pile at the dock, and $95,000 dollars per dolphin. The city expects the bumper pile repairs to be covered by the company involved in the damage. Barrett said the new dolphins probably wouldn’t have prevented the 2014 incident, but they should help prevent other issues in the future. Those will be paid for out of the city’s port enterprise fund.
All that work should be wrapped up by August.
“We’ve come to the conclusion that we’re going to be able to keep operations as normal as possible while we do this,” he said. “There might be a time or two that we have to stop for a boat but probably not. I think we’ll be able to do this.”
Barrett said the city is also working on getting a fish grinder installed at the harbor.
“The fish grinder is a new idea the city has come up with,” Barrett explained. “Rather than put the fish in a bin and dump it at the landfill, it’s kind of messy and it’s very smelly. It creates a bear hazard, even with it buried, the bears were coming in. They could smell it. So this fish grinder is going to come down here to the harbor, we’re hoping that we’re going to be able to keep it clean on a daily basis, keep it from smelling. It’s going to grind up all the fish guts and waste that people get from their subsistence nets, pump it out into the bay, let seagulls eat.”
That probably won’t be in place in time for subsistence fishing this summer. Barrett said the city hopes to choose a site at the harbor for the grinder this month, and then get to work. The spot will need water and electric hookups installed, as well as the actual grinder.
As of early May, Barrett hadn’t seen a final design – but, he said, he was hoping the design would enable round-the-clock operations.
“Hoping there’s some sort of hatch, fish dump in, it’ll go down to grinder,” Barrett said. “Maybe a float on it that starts grinding. I don’t think that it’s going to need to be manned 24 hours a day, I think that we’ll probably be able to accept the fish waste 24 hours.”