The borough will use the results of an eight-day public survey of users of its downtown harbor floats to boost the competitiveness of its federal grant application to rebuild the facilities, which officials said are in desperate need of repair.
The survey closed Monday and it will take a while to tabulate the results, but officials believe it will help make the borough’s case for as much as $25 million in federal funds.
After completing an $11.5 million repair project at Shoemaker Bay Harbor in 2019, the borough does not have the cash on hand to reconstruct the Wrangell Harbor Basin and is seeking federal grant funding. But the borough can’t complete its grant application alone — it needs to provide data about the harbor’s aging floats.
The borough’s 11-question survey for harbor users was designed to determine how the facility’s safety issues have affected community members, guests and their vessels. Even minor slips, scraps or electrical shocks at the harbor could help illustrate the necessity of the repair project.
“A lot of people don’t report the small slips and falls if they don’t get hurt,” said Port and Harbors Director Steve Miller. “I’d be curious to see what we get out of the survey as well, so we have a better idea of what we can do down there in the interim.”
The project would include the Inner Harbor along with Reliance, Standard Oil and seaplane floats.
Many of the floats are about 50 years old, Miller said, and in desperate need of an update. Lighting on many of the floats is poor, their electrical grounding systems are in critical condition, their fire safety systems are not up to code and their gangways are not compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act, according to a 2005 condition assessment.
“The electrical is over 35 years old and it’s out of compliance,” said Miller. “We can’t even get parts for half of it. That’s how old the floats are and that’s why we’re working hard to get money for them.”
The borough is applying for two federal grants to cover the project’s design and build costs — the Rebuilding American Infrastructure with Sustainability and Equity (RAISE) grant and the Port Infrastructure Development Program (PIDP) grant. Their deadlines are approaching rapidly, at the end of February and April, respectively.
In 2022, the borough applied for but was not awarded a RAISE grant for only the design and permitting phase of the harbor project. Community members wrote letters of support for the grant application, detailing the facility’s importance to the community and the dangers posed by the aging facilities.
“We recognize that this harbor basin includes Wrangell’s oldest dock and provides for nearly half of our total moorage capacity,” wrote Capt. Dorianne Sprehe of the Volunteer Fire Department. “The docks themselves present with twisting, rotting and deteriorated areas which are not only hazards for those trying to access their vessels but for the fire and EMS (Emergency Medical Services) responders trying to provide aid. … Additionally, the antiquated electrical system of the Inner Harbor presents many fire and electrical shock hazards to first responders, divers working in the area and vessel owners.”
The borough has adjusted its approach to applications since missing out on the 2022 round of RAISE grants. After learning that design-and-build projects are more likely to receive awards than design-only projects, borough officials “changed up (their) strategy to go for the entire project,” said Borough Manager Jeff Good. “It definitely helps with the additional money that’s out there right now, but they are really competitive grants,” he added.
The estimated cost for the full rebuild is just over $26 million, more than twice as much as the Shoemaker project. Inflation, combined with the extensive scope of work required for harbor basin floats, has driven up the price. “(Inflation) is a huge deal right now,” said Miller. “It was a 20% increase over what we had expected a couple years ago.”
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