The Biden-Harris Administration awarded Wrangell $25 million to help rebuild the harbor through the Harbor Basin Revitalization and Transportation Resiliency Project. The announcement came Wednesday, June 26 in a press release.
It is part of the Rebuilding American Infrastructure with Sustainability and Equity program, otherwise known as the RAISE grant program. In total, the federal government offered $54 million to Alaska in Infrastructure Grants.
Borough Manager Mason Villarma said it’s the biggest grant Wrangell has ever received. He said without it there would be no way to pay for revitalizing the harbors.
“That’s exceptional,” he said. “It’s like the centerpiece of our town.”
The total budget for the project is $28 million. Villarma said the borough will pursue a matching grant for the residual three million dollars.
“It’s environmentally responsible, it’s safe”
The project redesigns and replaces the deteriorating infrastructure of three parts of Reliance Harbor: the Inner Harbor, Reliance Float and Standard Oil Floats.
The borough plans to obtain new float system pilings, conduct environmental dredging and build a new parking lot for Inner Harbor.
“If you take a walk down the Inner Harbor, for example, it’s falling apart,” Villarma said. “It’s not safe in a lot of ways. And it’s also not suitable for expansion and economic growth.”
Villarma said Wrangell is a transportation community and commercial fishing has always been a huge part of the economy.
He said the harbor project is a green energy project that ratepayers don’t have to pay for.
“It’s environmentally responsible, it’s safe, it’s going to allow economic development opportunities,” Villarma said. “For the locals, it’s going to have nicer facilities for recreating and we all know that access is half the reason we live here. We can be out in our boats in five minutes from after work.”
Villarma anticipates that the project will take up to five years. He said hopefully it will be completed by 2029.
