New Start Funding Committed to Jetties Rehabilitation Project

New Start Funding Committed to Jetties Rehabilitation Project

I’m KayDee Gilkey with the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report.

Pacific Northwest Waterways Association Executive Director Kristin Meira says that the administration’s proposed 2014 budget has some great news in the way of a $1 million commitment for a new start for a big rehabilitation project for the mouth of the Columbia River jetties.

Meira: “That means new funding and a new beginning to a project for the jetties that protect the mouth of the Columbia River. These jetties were constructed in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s and they’ve been repaired and rehabilitated over the years. It is time to for them to be rehabilitated again. These rock jetties, they protect the entrance to our entire system and if they failed we’d have a bottle neck in the system.”

Meira says due to the stormy season, there is only a limited window of time each year to do work on these jetties.

Meira: “The storms that we see rolling off the Pacific and hitting the Oregon and Washington coast are fierce. I’ve heard it described as the equivalent of five Katrina’s a year. We just know that we have this weather and we’ve learned to deal with it. That’s why we have professional bar pilots bringing our vessels across the bar and professional river pilots. But that means that there are only certain times of the year when the Corp of Engineers and their contractors can get out there and do work on the jetties so it will be a multi-year phased-in project.”