Port districts form dredging co-op

Wahkiakum County Port Districts 1 and 2 now belong to a dredging co-op.

Both ports hope this new alliance with other ports along the Columbia River will alleviate some of the problems the county is having with the silting up of the channels on Puget Island, the mouth of Skamokawa Creek and the Elochoman Slough Marina.

“I honestly can’t remember who came up with the idea to buy the dredge,” said Port 2 Manager Steve McClain.

Besides Wahkiakum’s two port districts, the co-op includes the ports of Willapa Harbor, Ilwaco, Chinook, and Nahcotta in Pacific County.

The port managers went through a series of meetings in Ilwaco to determine each port’s individual needs and the type of dredge that would work best for all six ports. They met with the US Army Corps of Engineers and state and federal staffers to build support for the dredge purchase.

“First we had to explain what we needed,” said McClain. “At the time we were just looking to get our dredging permits and get the Corps to just do it.”

McClain said during the process the Corps's dredging policies changed, leaving them no longer authorized to dredge small channels. As a result, local ports were required to justify economically their requests for state and federal grants to purchase the dredge.

With this in mind, the ports set out on a quest to buy their own dredge.

“It was a 3-year process,” said McClain, “and we received a lot of help from (retired) Senator Mark Doumit.”

With some funds in place, the ports researched and gathered information to help them form the co-op they needed that would allow them to apply for the grants necessary to buy the dredge.

The research included engineering to identify the dredge type that would work best for all six ports. The managers were required to define dimensions and explore the depth and width of the channels at their port, and to identify the type of dredge spoils to be removed.

“Doumit also found the seed money for us to design a legal plan that included articles of incorporation for the co-op,” said McClain.

From the start, McClain said the ports were worried that the finances would keep them from succeeding. They hired Coast and Harbors Engineering to help put together the plan. The grant funds Wahkiakum’s Port 1 and 2 received went directly to the engineering firm.

“Some of our contributions were in-kind as well,” said McClain. “We did the legwork and put the package together to form the co-op, and we brought in the engineering firm.”

McClain said there was debate over whether a port authority should go into the dredging business rather than hire a private dredge company to come and do the work. The ports found that if they could find a certain type of dredge they could do the work more cost effectively themselves.

“We also discovered,” said McClain, “that there were a lot of other small jobs to do out in the community which the co-op could do to make money and would help cut the port’s cost for using the dredge on their own projects.”

The dredge currently sits in Willapa Bay at the Tokeland Marina. The concern, from the start, was how to move the dredge from port-to-port.

“The engineering firm helped find a portable dredge that can be trucked back and forth from the bay to the river,” said McClain.

McClain said the current plan is for the dredge to spend one dredge season on the river doing projects for the river ports and the next season in Willapa Bay.

“The idea is to develop a rotating schedule and work out crew requirements," he said. “The dredging season is almost over now for the year, so this gives the co-op time to sit down and work out the details of how the whole thing is going to work.”