Posted on May 2, 2017
By Sebastian Kitchen, jacksonville.com
Those overseeing a $43.5 million construction project to address a safety hazard on the St. Johns River say the project is a success even though 22 of the 50,000-pound concrete units used shifted.
Officials with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Jacksonville Port Authority said the Mile Point project is functioning as expected, diminishing powerful cross currents, and the 22 concrete units that shifted represent a small fraction of the more than 500 used to build a wall along the river.
“The key is the project is functioning as we designed,” and conditions have improved for the pilots navigating ships on the St. Johns River, said Project Manager Jason Harrah of the Corps.
JaxPort’s interim chief executive officer, Eric Green, said, “The project is a huge success.”
The St. Johns Riverkeeper, a non-profit focused on the health of the river and its tributaries, sees it differently.
The Riverkeeper’s Lisa Rinaman said, “It’s just another example of problems with the Army Corps projects; and the fact there is not a resolution, a fix, in place is a concern.” She added this is another example of “the corps not getting it right” and said that is a concern as the corps nears the beginning of an almost $700 million project to deepen 13 miles of the river.
The Mile Point project was initiated to help control the flow of the St. Johns River at Mile Point near Mayport, where there was previously a navigational hazard during ebb tides because of cross currents with the convergence with the Intracoastal Waterway.
The contractor, Manson Construction Company of Seattle, built a western wall in front of Great Marsh Island and used dredged material to fill in and restore the island that had eroded away, tore down an eastern wall that protruded in front of the Intracoastal Waterway, and rebuilt an eastern wall that did not extend into the waterway.
Prior to the construction, Harrah said, the cross current would push ships toward the north bank of the river so harbor pilots restricted the movement of large vessels.
“Vessels must navigate its difficult crosscurrents before accessing harbor terminals — especially difficult during ebb tide, when water flows out of the channel,” according to the Corps. “The larger container ships could only travel the St. Johns River during two four-hour periods of the day due to the tidal effects at the Mile Point location.”
The cross currents created safety concerns, restricting vessel timing and access, and affected the economic vitality of the port, according to the Corps.
Hardee Kavanaugh, a captain and president of the St. Johns Bar Pilot Association, said conditions have improved at Mile Point and they are starting to relax some of the restrictions on when ships can transit “as we get comfortable.”
Kavanaugh talked about the strong currents that “basically created a turning lever.” He said this became more of an issue after larger container ships began transiting the river in 2008 and 2009.
“It’s defused that current coming out of the creek,” Kavanaugh said of the project.
‘Risk and uncertainties’
Harrah said he was uncertain what caused the 22 concrete units to move out of place, though he pointed to Hurricane Matthew and an “unusual tide cycle.” Harrah said the units shifted earlier in construction — when only 40 percent of the wall was complete — so there was moving water on both sides of them. Now that the island is built, he said, there has been no more movement.
“Rehabbing or resetting these 22 units is very minor in the grand scheme of the project,” Harrah said.
Corps officials said they do not expect to have to regularly reset the units, which are seven feet wide and 14 feet long at the base with a maximum height of 10 feet.
He said the Corps has an “elaborate quality assurance/quality control process to identify these issues and get them fixed prior to acceptance.” He added there is less than 1 percent cost overrun on the project, which he considers a “huge success for a project costing more than $40 million.”
“There is always risk and uncertainties with every project we do,” Harrah said. “Every project we do, we go through a detailed risk analysis.” He said they look at every aspect and what could happen during the life of the project.
Corps spokeswoman Susan Jackson said, “We work with the contractor daily and will come to agreement for an appropriate repair plan in the near future.”
Army Corps and JaxPort officials said the work is just part of the punch list of items that need to be addressed after any construction project.
Harrah said the work will not add to the cost for taxpayers and will be “done within dollar values already provided.” The $43.5 million project is funded by the port and the Florida Department of Transportation.
The contractor is working on a repair plan to determine how to pick up the concrete units and set them in the determined location, Harrah said. The firm will determine how to safely go into the river and reset the concrete. Once a plan is established, Harrah expects work to be completed in a month or two. He expects all of the work, including the reset, to be completed by early July.
Harrah did reject some proposals from the contractor, Jackson said, “because we want to ensure the project will last for its 50-year proposed life.”
Implications for dredging?
Rinaman said of the situation “There is a failure in construction or a failure in the engineering.” She contends, “There’s just a lot of unanswered questions and there is no solution in place.”
The Riverkeeper posted a video taken from a drone showing the breeches in the retaining wall.
With no solution shared and some plans already rejected, Rinaman said, “it just kind of demonstrates it might be a more complex error than they’re sharing with us.”
With issues surfacing from a $43.5 million project, Rinaman said, she is concerned about what that could mean for the almost $700 million plan to dredge 13 miles of the St. Johns River to make way for larger ships. The Corps is managing that project, which has not started as the federal government awaits a funding plan from JaxPort.
Rinaman said, “The Corps does not have a good track record,” listing concerns with other Corps projects including levees that failed during Hurricane Katrina and damage to coral reefs during the deepening of the harbor in Miami.
With the dredging, Rinaman said, the Corps has “not even fully assessed the full impact.” Once the project is completed, she said, it is too late. She pointed to coral damage in Miami.
“Once the damage is done, it is next to impossible to correct and the attempts are extremely expensive, and it’s all falling on the backs of local taxpayers.”
JaxPort’s Green doubted if there is another entity besides the Corps that can perform the work.
He said, “They are good at what they do.”
Source: jacksonville.com
