Wilderness mostly makes up the Cleveland Peninsula, a Southeast Alaska mainland peninsula. Meyers Chuck juts out of it with a series of small islands that encircle the bay. Prince of Wales Island is just west of the community.
About 20 residents live in Meyers Chuck – including Carol Brown. She said she’s lived in the remote community for 18 years and the float dock has been deteriorating for a while. At first the flotation, which is a type of white Styrofoam, began dissolving. She said pieces of it were all over their beaches.
In response, the community refloated the dock with about 130 blue and white plastic drum barrels several years ago. The repair was temporary but functional, at least to this point. Now, part of the float [the intersection of the ramp called the gangway, that leads to the pier down the floats] is covered in water.
“That’s not going to last a whole lot longer because the wood that the barrels are under is deteriorating, as all things do in Alaska,” Brown said.
She said the float dock is kind of their link to the world since the isolated area doesn’t have roads.
“The community members do have boats of various sizes,” Brown said. “We use our skiffs to get from house to house because a lot of the homes are on separate islands that encircle our bay.”
Borough of Wrangell is responsible for repairing the dock
The Borough of Wrangell owns the remote dock and found funds to replace half of it. But then another issue arose – no one bid on the project.
That’s problematic for boaters as the dock is the only place to moor up in the roughly 80 miles between Wrangell and Ketchikan.
Brown said the floats are already at capacity and it’s vital that the dock be fully replaced.
“We get a tremendous amount of visiting boats through here throughout the seasons,” she said. “During the summer it’s a lot of yachts transiting through on their way to Wrangell and then we get a lot of fish boats, particularly in the fall.”
The Borough of Wrangell is responsible for replacing the dock but has been looking at cost-saving ways. Their solution is to shorten the 400-feet dock to 200-feet.
Brown said the smaller size would not give enough space for all the vessels to moor. She disagrees with the U.S. Census that says there’s 21 people who live in the area. She said there are over 50 homes and up to 100 residents seasonally.
“We believe the costs are going to come in higher…”
The State of Alaska gave the Borough of Wrangell ownership of the Meyers Chuck float dock 10 years ago.
Amber Al-Haddad, Wrangell’s capital facilities director, said when the borough was looking at estimates a couple years ago it would add up to roughly $2.3 million.
“We believe that the costs are going to come in higher than that original budget number that we used to request the funding from the state,” she said.
The Borough submitted a grant application to the State of Alaska Department of Transportation two years ago. The grant is for the state to match roughly $1.1 million with the local government’s port and harbor reserves. That would pay for the 200-feet dock.
Al-Haddad said she doubts the state will give any more funds. If the cost is higher, the borough must find money to make up the total balance.
Al-Haddad wrote in an email that she was surprised no one bid, especially since a number of float manufacturers showed interest. She said she’s in the process of reaching out to the prospective bidders to learn what happened.
Two phases of the project
But as they wait, Al-Haddad said the project will be divided up into two phases – the design of the dock and its construction.
She said the borough approved $332,566 for the design back in 2021. She explained that the delay is because the borough assembly asked for the design work to go out to bid. This would allow them to choose the most economical contractor. Eventually, the borough reduced the cost to $232,216, enough to replace 200-feet out of the 400-feet dock.
The estimated cost would be $600 thousand and the 200-feet dock can be moored on either side of the original dock. In addition, the borough created another bid to extend the float by 100 feet. In total, the estimate would be $945,000.
“If the bids come in within a level of funding that allows us to award that additive alternate for the additional 100 feet, that’s what we would do. By installing the timber decking here in Wrangell is one of the efforts that would have some cost savings,” Al-Haddad said. “What they would do is pick up the floats from the harbor in Wrangell. They would be obligated to haul them to Myers Chuck, unless there is talk that we might attempt to do that ourselves, but we’ll likely hire that out.”
Al-Haddad said the contractor will reuse as much material from the old dock as possible.
Additionally, the borough has requested consultation with the National Marine Fisheries Service under the Endangered Species Act for the project. They also submitted an application for a permit from the US Army Corps of Engineers, which is required due to the construction on water.
She said that the estimated cost for construction would be $595 thousand, not counting the design costs.
If the bid came through on Tuesday, Al-Haddad hoped construction would be complete by next summer. Now, it’s unknown when that will happen.
