The out-of-commission barge ramp where Wrangell usually unloads its freight needs to be replaced. Until that happens, repairs will suffice.
A 2011 condition assessment of the barge ramp estimated it had another 10 to 15 years of useful life remaining before reaching a point where it would have degraded enough that it may no longer be considered safe to use, Port Director Steve Miller wrote in his report to the port commission’s Dec. 16 meeting.
Miller estimates replacing the ramp could cost $2 million. A timeline will be dependent on funding, possibly from the recently passed federal infrastructure bill.
The ramp replacement also is on the list of the borough’s capital improvement projects it will submit for consideration by the Legislature next year.
Earlier this year, port department staff discovered a hole in a flotation tank that supports the barge end of the ramp, and the borough is preparing to spend $115,000 for repairs to put the facility back into use, according to Miller’s report. “This is a critical structure where all of the community’s freight is routed to town by freight barges,” Miller wrote.
“The barge ramp became the number one priority because everything that comes into Wrangell comes along that,” Miller told the port commission at its meeting.
Separate from a full replacement of the ramp, the port department is working with Jeff Good, interim borough manager, and Capital Facilities Director Amber Al-Haddad to get the bid packet out for the barge ramp tank repair sometime in January, with completion hopefully before April, according to the report.
Until the repair is complete, the weekly Alaska Marine Lines freight barges will have to continue to side-tie at the former sawmill dock at The Marine Service Center, as it has since September.
The borough assembly at its Nov. 9 meeting authorized $115,000 for the project to fix the damaged flotation tank.
Workers in October pulled the tank off the end of the barge ramp for repairs of a leak that had reduced its buoyancy.
A local contractor, Tim Heller, of Heller High Water, swung one end of the 140-foot-long ramp onto his barge so both tanks at the water end of the ramp could be removed. The ramp is temporarily secured until the tanks can be reinstalled.
The ramp was built in 1977. An extra layer was steel later was added to the ramp.
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