Iron County to receive $326,453 in grants for Saxon Harbor

By RICHARD JENKINS

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Hurley — Iron County will be getting some additional help in paying for the cost of rebuilding Saxon Harbor after it was destroyed during flooding in the July 11 storm.

Iron County Forestry and Parks Administrator Eric Peterson told the county board of supervisors’ finance committee Thursday the county received three grants, totaling $326,453, for rebuilding the harbor.

Peterson said the grants were awarded at a Wisconsin Waterways Commission meeting he attended Tuesday.

Two of the three grants — a combined $138,910 in funds — are for dredging work at the harbor, according to Peterson. The third grant of $187,543 is intended for “various things during the harbor reconstruction that won’t be covered by the Federal Emergency Management Agency and to supplement whatever insurance settlement we get, (it’s) to kind of work to get things put back together,” Peterson said.

“That’s $326,000 we won’t have to shell out of Iron County’s pockets,” he added.

One of the dredging grants is intended to cover the county’s 12.5 percent of costs not covered by Wisconsin Emergency Management or FEMA. The other is to cover 50 percent of the cost of additional dredging to deepen the harbor, Peterson told the Daily Globe after the meeting.

The third grant would cover items such as repairs to the north parking lot and timbers on the east wall of the harbor, as well as the bathroom facility at the harbor.

While one of the grants is to cover the county’s share of the FEMA-covered dredging, Peterson told the committee he is getting conflicting information about whether the county can use grant funds to pay for its portion of the costs.

Even if the money can’t be used for the county’s share, Peterson is fairly confident the money will go to other uses at the harbor.

“We have a lot of other things to spend money on down there,” he said.

While the grants use DNR funds, they don’t count toward the state’s 12.5 percent of the FEMA costs, Peterson said. The remaining 75 percent of aid — after the county and state each contribute 12.5 percent — comes from FEMA.