The main dock in Haines where everything from groceries to vehicles and fuel come into town is falling apart and the borough does not have the money to fix or replace it.
Today is barge day— once a week a barge brings whatever supplies are needed to keep life going here, in this remote Southeast Alaska town of about 2,500.
“It is where we bring in cargo and freight. Most of the stuff comes in via barge and it is transferred on these large forklifts behind us,” said Brad Ryan, Director of Public Facilities for the Haines Borough. The borough owns Lutak dock.
“Its groceries, it is furniture, pretty much anything you see in town or going up the highway,” said Ryan.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers built the dock in 1953. The borough eventually became owner of the dock. Over the years, there have been many repairs.
In 2014, the borough hired Seattle firm PND Engineers to assess the dock. The firm wrote in their report that “… the structure has reached the end of its credible 60‐year service life. Further utilization is effectively on “borrowed time.”” The report also laid out a long list of problems with the dock structure that pose, “significant risk”.
The borough has about a million dollars saved to put towards the dock. In 2017, the borough had a design firm present several plans and estimates to fix or replace the dock, ranging from 25 to 37 million dollars.
That year, the borough applied for a federal grant to try to fix or replace the dock but was rejected because they could not come up with enough matching funds.
Ryan walks down on the roll-on-roll-off dock, which allows larger items to be rolled or driven on and off of barges. The float system underneath is rusted and corroding. Some of the large pilings are broken or missing on the bumpers or “dolphins”.
“If you look at this one to the right over here it is totally missing at the bottom and the barges don’t want to be in here and pushing up against them anymore so those need to be either refaced or replaced,” said Ryan.
He says that barge companies have pretty much stopped using the roll-on-roll-off because of the problems.
Ryan points out that rock and dirt-filled concrete holding the main dock area up is slumping and falling out through giant cracks.
“So these are cells that are filled with rock and that metal is corroded and is failing and you can see it is cracking,” said Ryan. “There is just dirt and rock and material inside of it that is leaking out.”
There are issues at the face of the dock too. You can’t tell from up top, but underneath several H-beams that are missing.
“They’ve corroded and been eaten away by the salt water,” said Ryan.
Once a month, Haines Borough Harbor Master Sean Bell takes a skiff down underneath the dock to get a better look.
“We’ve got the H-piles that are pretty much non-existent at this point, that help support the concrete header above,” said Bell. “And we’ve got the piles that are, well, rather rusted, but still holding together, for the most part— the sheet piles.”
Bell estimates that the majority of the metal H-piles are missing.
Back in 2014, the borough requested that the barge company stay away from the face the dock with their forklift with the exception of one reinforced area.
At a recent Haines Borough Assembly meeting, the body passed a resolution saying that they will close the dock within two years. Borough Manager, Debra Schnabel, says the borough is running out of time.
“We’re now at the lifespan of that dock, we’re probably beyond it by 20 years, and we never have been able to accumulate enough money to repair or replace it. We’re in a situation now where we pretty much have to do that,” said Schnabel.
Schnabel says a general obligation bond could be used to raise money to pay for the dock, although the borough is currently paying for two other bonds—for the library and the school, so it might be a hard sell. Another possibility is a public-private partnership between the borough and an investor.
In the current economic climate, Schnabel said that it is unlikely the funds will come from the state. Federal funds may be possible, but would still require a local match. But Schnabel says, one thing is clear, Haines has to change how Haines plans for its future.
“We tend to take money and spend it on operational costs and we don’t raise funds for, you know, saving for replacement costs,” said Schnabel.
Engineering assessments say that catastrophic failure of the dock is unlikely, but if the dock becomes unusable, not planning for the future could also become very costly for people who live in the Haines Borough and for the businesses that operate there.
Goods would most likely end up having to be barged to Skagway then trucked across the Canadian border to Haines by road, be brought in via the Alaska Marine Highway system to Haines, or be trucked up the Alcan and down the Haines Highway from the Lower 48.
I certainly believe when a district votes out one of the biggest power brokers in the state you sealed your own fate. This includes my community of Sitka where Rep Thomas had a large chunk of our Blue Lake Exspansion funding lined up until we decided dome student from Yale could serve us better.
To answer your question Fred, why did the Assembly allow the dock to get in the current condition, they are ordinary citizens with little to no experience in facilities, engineering, maintenance, planning for the future, etc. They realize this and hire a manager to help them. This person has been a bust for years here and the ones they did hire did the path of least resistance and just did what Jan Hill, Bill Thomas and Don Turner told them to do which was build a harbor expansion which was an ego trip. Fixing things is not sexy enough for a politician, they want to point at something and say, I built that. In this case they can point to the giant sea wall which looks like a trash can was flattened. There will be no new floats which is actually good because we don’t need them. Drive by the existing harbor any day, there are always empty slips. The whole thing was and continues to be a con. Cheaters never prosper, see Lutak Dock for proof of that. That’s the short answer.
Notice we have plenty of money for paying executives of the borough to leave. Massive $66,000 bonuses. But no money to even maintain essential infrastructure. The primary function of the borough is to provide essential services. A clear failure here. In our borough, the dock is an essential piece of infrastructure, why does the Haines Borough Assembly NOT understand this, why did the Haines Borough Assembly allow the dock to get in the current condition? Why do we have $95,000 to flush down the toilet with the economic development council but no money for existing infrastructure? Found 32 million for the small boat harbor which was not “necessary”. No money for the dock which is “necessary”. Go figure.