Serving Gogebic, Iron and Ontonagon Counties
Serving Gogebic, Iron and Ontonagon Counties
By RICHARD JENKINS
Hurley — The process of determining the amount of aid the Federal Emergency Management Agency will give Iron County to rebuild Saxon Harbor is nearly complete, according to a report given at Wednesday’s Iron County Board of Supervisors meeting.
The money is part of the assistance the county will receive to rebuild the harbor following the July 11 storm, when heavy rains caused flooding that destroyed the harbor.
Iron County Forestry and Parks Administrator Eric Peterson told the county board that FEMA broke the Saxon Harbor project into six categories — debris removal, dredging, emergency services, harbor facilities, campground facilities and insurance components.
Peterson began his update on the process of determining funding amounts by giving a brief overview of each category and the expected costs for each.
According to information presented at the meeting, FEMA estimates the total cost for the six categories to be $3,211,235. The cost for the entire project, when including other funding sources — including the county’s insurance company and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers — is now estimated to be around $5,739,857.
Following the meeting, Peterson told the Daily Globe the numbers are lower than previous estimates not so much as a result of disagreements over the scope of work, but rather different estimates over how much per-unit costs would be.
Even if the actual costs wind up being higher than the estimates, at least some of the categories are large enough that they qualify as “large projects” under FEMA’s guidelines, meaning the county is reimbursed based on the actual costs rather than the estimates.
The county will receive 75 percent reimbursement from FEMA, with the Wisconsin Department of Emergency Management reimbursing another 12.5 percent.
The debris estimate was $123,681, the dredging costs are estimated at $958,772, emergency services at $5,486, harbor facilities at $1,553,432, campground facilities at $559,864 and insurance costs at $10,000.
Peterson told the board that while the dredging estimates include the perimeter of the north basin, the entire south basin and Oronto Creek to put the areas back to pre-disaster conditions; it doesn’t include the mouth of harbor or down the center of the north basin.
Peterson said this dredging is the responsibility of the Army Corps of Engineers, although it is unclear when it would be completed.
“The issue we may have moving forward with that is, when asked when the Army Corps would be able to do that dredging, they said, ‘When funds become available,’” Peterson said. “The last time Army Corps funds were available for Saxon Harbor was 2008, so we may end up revisiting that somewhere down the line.”
He said the emergency services category primarily included the work done by some of the department employees immediately after the storm, such as the work done recovering the docks that were washed away in the flooding.
This number is solid, Peterson said, since the needed information has already been turned into FEMA, so they’ll get 87.5 percent of that number.
He said harbor facilities was “everything at Saxon Harbor that is out of the water at the marina, that is not covered by insurance.”
Peterson said the campground category, which covers the parts of the campground not covered by insurance, was one of the remaining areas of contention.
While FEMA is estimating approximately $559,864 as the cost to return the campground to its pre-storm state, Peterson said he was still attempting to negiotiate with FEMA so they will cover the costs if the county has to relocate the campground.
He explained state law — which FEMA requires the county’s rebuilding project comply with — likely doesn’t allow the campground be rebuilt the way it was before the storm.
“State statute does not allow a campground facility to be built in a flood plain, unless you can provide an early warning system to provide 72 hours notice of an impending flood,” Peterson said. “We’re going to have a hard time providing 72 hours at the harbor.”
Because of this, Peterson said the state is recommending he doesn’t sign off on the numbers for that project. He said he is still hoping to negotiate to have the agency cover the campground’s cost regardless of where it is, explaining if they settle on the $560,000 figure anything above that would have to be covered entirely by the county.
Peterson told the board to consider the $560,000 number a minimum at this point.
It’s not clear whether the campground would be located, as there is a possibility it could be raised above the flood plain elevation — depending on how high it needed to be.
As it’s close to 2 acres, Peterson said it likely wouldn’t be cost effective to elevate it beyond a foot or two.
While FEMA doesn’t need the county to sign off on the numbers, Peterson said getting changes is much more difficult once the cost estimates are submitted. Once the final numbers are agreed upon and submitted, any changes would require a change order, he explained. According to Peterson, federal change orders require all work stop until the change order is approved, a process which could take several months.
While there will envitably be conflicts and change orders on projects of this size, Peterson said he is trying to get as much as possible hammered out prior to work beginning to avoid needless delays.
Following his report, the county board authorized Peterson to sign off on all cost estimates, except the campground costs.
