Crescent City Harbor to get $1.17M advance
State decision may help speed recovery efforts.
Repairs to Crescent City Harbor might be expedited thanks to a $1.17 million advance in funds from the California Emergency Management Agency.
Mike Dayton, acting secretary of Cal EMA, said Thursday the agency is forgoing its normal process of reimbursement to help the harbor rebuild faster.
“We’re viewing it as an extraordinary measure,” Dayton said in a telephone interview with The Daily Triplicate.
Both federal and state assistance has been promised to the harbor after a tsunami generated by an earthquake in Japan decimated the inner boat basin March 11.
Kelly Huston, assistant secretary of Cal EMA, said the agency is trying to make sure nothing delays the rebuilding of the harbor and docks. He said project reimbursements usually follow a set process.
“They go out, do the work, submit receipts and then are reimbursed if it’s qualified,” Huston said.
Instead, Dayton said Cal EMA is fronting $1.17 million to speed up the process.
“Without the advance funds, we’d have to wait for an approval from FEMA, which would take six weeks,” Dayton said.
Harbormaster Richard Young said he talked to Cal EMA representatives Wednesday but hadn’t heard about the decision to advance funds. He said it’ll be a huge boost to the harbor’s bottom line.
“We have to carefully plan our cash flow,” Young said. “There are going to be months where we’re going to have millions of dollars of bills.”
He said the harbor will “have roughly $35 million in projects over the next 30 months,” which can create a cash flow problem when waiting around for reimbursements.
Young said the harbor is moving forward with its plans for securing a contractor to dredge, repair the rock slope around the harbor, install new pilings and place new docks.
Harbor commissioners voted Wednesday to approve a plan for both temporary docks and the first phase of reconstruction in the inner boat basin, in addition to accepting interview questions for potential contractors.
Young said the temporary dock plan is driven by the desire to accommodate the local fleet of about 81 boats. He said a combination of the wood docks obtained from San Francisco and some concrete ones to be acquired from Brookings — both funded by FEMA — will help supplement the harbor’s own docks.
“This is not going to be perfect,” Young said, adding that any kinks will have to be worked out along the way.
He said there’ll be a lot to take into consideration when slips are actually assigned to boats.
“Boats that are actively fishing need to be on one of the docks where they can get better access,” Young said.
The intent is to have all the floats in by Oct. 15, once a majority of the dredging is completed, he said.
Currently, the harbor has seven contractors who have been pre-approved for the first phase of the reconstruction project. Commissioners voted Wednesday to appoint engineer Ward Stover to conduct interviews with project owners who have employed the builders before.
Contractors will be responsible for dredging, removing about 30 pilings and repairing 500 feet of rock slope protection during the first project phase. Stover said the next phase will commence in August or September.
“The next project is going to be a very big one,” Stover said.
During the second phase, dredging will continue, the rest of the pilings will be removed and more rock slope protection will be replaced. Stover said the goal is to dredge the harbor to about 10-12 feet below sea level.
“We’re going to take the harbor back to how it was before the 2006 tsunami,” Stover said about dredging depths.
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