PORT ANGELES — The dream of once again paddling up to a mooring float at City Pier, tying up your kayak and strolling downtown for a bite to eat won’t come to fruition this year.
The five City Pier floats — which once provided seasonal moorage for local mariners and tourists, and a resting place for the tall ships Lady Washington and Hawaiian Chieftain during visits to the North Olympic Peninsula — were pulled out in 2012, rotted beyond repair.
Did not materialize
The goal of having replacements installed in 2015 did not materialize.
And on May 17, Corey Delikat, Port Angeles Parks and Recreation director, told the City Council that the $350,000 float replacement project would not likely be realized this summer.
That became a harsh reality Thursday, courtesy of a conference call with representatives of the federal Department of Fish & Wildlife, Delikat said Friday.
Biological assessment
Delikat said the agency is requiring the city to conduct a biological assessment of the project before Fish & Wildlife consults with the Department of Historic Preservation and the National Marine Fisheries Service about the float-replacement project.
Delikat said he will find out more this week about what the assessment will entail — and where the money might come from to conduct it.
“This definitely is going to delay the project to the point where we won’t get it this year,” he said Friday.
“Hopefully, we’ll have [the floats] built over the winter and put them in first thing in the spring.
“I’m very confident we’ll get them in next year.”
Delikat’s goal: Before Memorial Day weekend 2017.
Grant awarded
In early 2015, the city was awarded a $257,900 Federal Boating Infrastructure Tier II grant that the city matched with an additional $92,250 in real estate excise taxes.
Timing of installation of the floats would depend on arrival of materials and availability of parks and engineering staff, Delikat said March 16, 2015.
“We’re hoping for sometime this summer,” he said then, referring to summer 2015.
That didn’t come about and the next goal was to have them installed this summer.
Permits required
But Delikat said Thursday he had not expected the plethora of permits required under the state Joint Aquatic Resource Permit Application (JARPA) process
“We weren’t even aware early on that we needed to do a JARPA,” Delikat said.
“Once we were told we needed to do a JARPA, the rest of the layers started popping up.”
Margaret Warner of the Governor’s Office for Regulatory Innovation and Assistance said the city applied for the following permits from the following agencies under the JARPA process:
■ State Department of Fish & Wildlife for hydraulic project approval.
■ U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
■ State Department of Ecology for water quality certification.
■ Department of Natural Resources for aquatic user permit.
Delikat had told the City Council on May 17 that the floats possibly could be installed by mid-July at the earliest but they would be pulled by mid-October.
Councilman Lee Whetham had asked Delikat for a status report on the project, noting the many fishermen in town.
“We need to support a good experience for these folks coming in,” Whetham said.
Delikat said the project also was delayed by turnover at the state level in the Recreation and Conservation Office.
“I don’t know if that was a realistic goal, to get it done by July,” he said.
Whetham noted at the meeting that it would take time for bids to be awarded and the floats to be built, presaging Thursday’s news.
“It doesn’t look good, folks,” he said.
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Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 55650, or at pgottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.
