About 18 people signed the attendance sheet at the Sitka Sea Walk public meeting at Centennial Hall Thursday night.
Attendance may have been affected by the attraction of the Sitka High-Mt. Edgecumbe regional championship basketball game being played or, by coincidence, the Assembly’s work session on tourism funding that was being held elsewhere at Centennial Hall.
In any event, the proposed $3 million seaside walkway on the outside of the O’Connell Bridge abutment between the library and the O’Connell Bridge lightering dock has not been a big deal in Sitka since it was unveiled to the public in November 2022. That showing was equally sparsely attended, but a few more of the details of the project were brought up at that time than at the showing Thursday night. For example, the loss of on-street parking on the east end of the bridge, where the bridge guardrail will be moved in because the new walkway will take up the shoulder of the highway.
At both the Thursday night and the Nov. 23, 2022, DOT public sessions in Sitka, officials in charge of the project emphasized the improvement in tourist access from the O’Connell lightering dock to Sitka National Historical Park, and improved safety for all users. The project as now envisioned has an eight-foot wide concrete walkway atop a base of new rock fill. Its whole length would parallel the existing walking access from the lightering dock, which is a wide concrete sidewalk, a section of it bordered by a steel pipe guardrail.
We can thank the Department of Highways for the time and effort they have dedicated to this project, which is primarily state and federally funded. Sitka will pay its share with cruise ship head tax money, and maintain the walkway when it is finished.
DOT says it will take comment on the project through April 6. It remains to be seen what some of the local organizations that have a stake in the project, as well as members of the general public, will say.
As far as the public is concerned, the procedure for comment was not stated at the Thursday meeting, or if it was the Sentinel missed it.
But a city official graciously walked us through the process this morning. Here it is: Go online to www.cityofsitka.com. Choose “Current News,” go over to “Projects,” and under “Projects” drop down to “Sitka Sea Walk Phase II,” which will open the project home page. In the first paragraph of the narrative there is a link to the place to post a comment.
State and federal authorities on historic, environmental, and engineering issues are involved here also, and it will be interesting to hear their take on what is under way in Sitka.
And as far as local organizations are concerned, there are the Sitka Tourism Task Force, Sitka Parks and Recreation Committee, Sitka Tree and Landscape Committee, Sitka Historic Preservation Commission, Sitka Planning Commission, Sitka Police and Fire Commission, and probably others, that as far as we know have never had their own open house or town hall on the bridge sea walk.
Here are some issues that we suggest are worth public discussion:
The “Scoping Report” that appears to be the most current, dates from 2020.
Since 2020, and since the prior public Sea Walk public session, a deep-water dock berthing two ships at a time has been built in Sitka. (Later this week the Sentinel will report on the number of scheduled cruise ship stops at the bridge lightering dock this summer.)
If there was any awareness among the DOT officials Thursday that the new dock has any effect on their walkway plans, it was not stated.
DOT officials said they want to get started on building Phase II of the Sitka Sea Walk at the end of this tourist season. The DOT worker in charge of the environmental aspect of the Seawalk Plan said, in answer to a question Thursday, that the project, despite years of DOT planning, does not have all of the necessary state and federal permits.
Among those is one from NEPA on the placement of 22,770 tons of shot rock, gravel and “Type A” material on the existing bridge abutment, and the long- and short-term effect that this might have on the two acres or so of city-owned submerged and tideland eelgrass beds that will be directly impacted by the new rock fill and associated construction.
But getting back to Sitka’s role in the bridge sea walk project. We suggest that since it would have the biggest effect on the city’s natural and built environment than anything since the bridge was built 50 years ago we should start paying a little more attention to it now.
–Thad Poulson
