Port of Alsea delays $2.66 million marina project for a year because of permit issues

By Quinton Smith/YachatsNews.com

WALDPORT — Delays in getting a permit from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is forcing the Port of Alsea to delay rebuilding its marina and boat ramp for a year.

The marina was scheduled to close Oct. 23 and the port and its contractor, Bergerson Construction of Astoria, had hoped to start work in November.

Bonds for the $2.66 million project were approved by port district voters in 2018 and the port has been working since to get bids and all the necessary permits to work in an environmentally sensitive waterway. Because of migrating fish and other issues, state and federal agencies only allow in-water work to be done from November to mid- February.

But Bergerson warned the port in a letter Oct. 7 that the Corps’ permit wouldn’t likely be issued until January — leaving only two months to do the work. Because of that, it urged the port to delay the project for a year.

In a special meeting last week, the port’s five-member board agreed.

“Nobody was very happy about it, but everyone could see why,” said Roxie Cueller, port manager.

So instead of closing in late October, the boat launch and marina will stay open for another year. Dredging around the marina will also have to wait.

“Bergerson was very reasonably concerned that they couldn’t get it done in the 3 1/2-month in-water work period,” Cueller said.

The project calls for a new, two-lane boat launch with a center walkway and parking lot. Rusting pilings would be pulled out and the smaller marina replaced with new walkways, 38 boat slips, short- and long-term tie-ups and a boathouse for Central Coast Fire and Rescue.

There will also be a new fishing and crabbing platform and a 150-foot-long, 10-foot wide floating walkway for fishing, crabbing and launching kayaks.

The project also involves dredging sand from the entrance and north sides of the marina and placing it on the beach near the west side of downtown Waldport.

Bergerson said it will do the project next year for the same cost.

To do the project the port needed permits from the Corps, the Oregon Department of State Lands, and the National Marine Fisheries Service. As part of Corps-required mitigation, the port agreed to use more expensive grated walkways in the marina, install fewer pilings and haul away concrete blocks from a former seawall at the west end of the marina parking lot.

But Bergerson and the port were surprised when NMFS added more mitigation requirements away from the project.

Finding and developing a mitigation project to satisfy NMFS took about three months, Cueller said, “and that’s what broke the timeline.”

That mitigation will involve removing 400 yards of  rock and dirt used to make a dam in a canal in the wetlands across the Alsea River from Eckman Lake. That will cost an additional $140,000, Cueller said.

The NMFS requirements were “totally unexpected,” Cueller said.

The port has already remodeled its bathrooms and installed a payment machine for daily boat launching. It expects to get final approval in December of a $100,000 grant from the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife to help pay for the fishing platform and floating walkway.

In the meantime, proceeds from the project’s bonds are collecting interest that can be used on other capital projects once the main projects are finished in February 2021.

“In the end, there will be some good things come out of this,” Cueller said.