Due to several sections of Dillingham's All Tide Dock being damaged, the city of Dillingham is quickly gathering funds and support to repair the vital dock before a season of large barges enter their waters.
The All Tide dock in Dillingham is one of the major points of entry into the Bristol Bay region. The dock closed on Aug. 9 after a section of the dock was found to be seriously damaged. The 250-foot portion of the damaged dock was reopened that Sunday, but only temporarily before being closed again to continue repairs.
The exact cause of the damage to the dock is still unknown, but the damage is repairable, and the city managers in Dillingham are hard at work gathering materials and enlisting a company to come in and do the repairs.
On Friday, Aug. 9, engineers assessed the damage to the dock and found the damage is certainly repairable, the dock is currently closed and undergoing the necessary repairs. A portion of the dock was opened briefly to accommodate a barge delivery that entered the harbor, but was closed again immediately afterward so that the restoration project could resume.
On Tuesday, Aug. 13, the Dillingham City Council approved spending over $200,000 to repair the damaged All Tide Dock during a special meeting. The council approved the spending to fix the dock because of the dock's importance to Dillingham and the city's dependence on having a functioning dock to load and unload barges that frequently traffic through the harbor, and also because of the availability of a repair company to come into Dillingham to do the work to make the necessary repairs.
As of right now, there are no scheduled barge deliveries expected to enter Dillingham while the dock is still in disrepair, except for the barge that brought in supplies to fix the dock itself. However, this lack of activity will not last long, as the All Tide Dock is heavily used and especially so in the later part of the summer seasons.
A repair team arrived last Thursday morning and began work on excavating the gravel from behind the sheet piling at the All Tide Dock. The crew estimates that two sheet pilings must be removed and a large excavation area is needed to exposed the damaged areas of the dock and allow a space to work and apply the repairs.
The damage was discovered when a noticeable bulge on the north side of the dock where the sheet piling had separated. The sheet piling was implemented in order to release lateral pressure from the harbor, but after years of built up pressure, the sheet piling gave under the hundreds of pounds of pressure from the gravel and soil behind it towards the water.
The Dillingham City Council Special Meeting Agenda from Aug. 13 laid out the discussion for the total cost of the repairs that will be needed to get the All Tide Dock back into working condition, as well as the repair contracts that would have to be given to companies to come in and assist on the repairs. The two contracts that were discussed were to Orion Marine Corporation Inc. and to Bennett Enterprises, both of which had worked on the All Tide Dock in the past.
The urgency of this City Council meeting came from the narrow time frame that a company had to get to Dillingham and implement the necessary repairs.
"We have been working with Dempsey Thieman, the Senior Engineer that had oversight of the original work at the dock," the Special Council Meeting agenda reads. "Orion Marine Corporation is working on a project in Naknek and has another job in Togiak. They have a window of time that they could stop in Dillingham before going to Togiak. We have to act fast with them in order to secure the work."
In regards to the other contract, Bennett Enterprises, the reasons for hiring the company were not as rushed, but certainly just as favorable. "The repair work at the All Tide Dock needs equipment for excavation and compacting the material for filling in the hole," reads the same City Council Special Meeting Agenda. "Bennett Enterprises has assisted the City when the damage to the dock fist happened and we will continue to use them until fully repaired. They have a longer reaching excavator, compactor and other equipment that we will need to rent with an operator."
The repairs at the All Tide Dock are underway and has an estimated completion within the next week.
This article originally appeared in the Bristol Bay Times and is republished here with permission.