Serving Gogebic, Iron and Ontonagon Counties
Serving Gogebic, Iron and Ontonagon Counties
By RICHARD JENKINS
Hurley — While it hasn’t committed to spending any money yet, the Iron County Board of Supervisors voted Wednesday to seek bids for rebuilding the Saxon Harbor campground.
With the Federal Emergency Management Agency announcing in recent months it would be capping the amount of money the county can be reimbursed for the campground after its destruction in the July 2016 storm, the board decided it was worth seeing the bids for various parts of the project before deciding how to proceed.
“Ultimately, what we’re looking at is another bid project the county board can decide on whether or not they want to move forward with. If the bids come in for this thing and it pushes the project to $3.6 million, that’s another $200,000 out of Iron County’s pocket,” Iron County Forestry and Parks Administrator Eric Peterson told the board. “So that’s a decision you would make at the time of bids — do we award that contract? Do we pull things out of it to make it something we want to do?”
What to do with the dirt removed from the site, whether to pave the road through the campground and having the forestry department complete some parts of the project in-house were just some examples of areas where cost savings could be explored.
The decision to seek bids came after Peterson updated the board on the money spent rebuilding the harbor’s marina and campground and what Iron County’s financial obligation will be when everything is finished.
Rebuilding the harbor — which so far is mostly the marina and the County A bridge over Oronto Creek — has cost $10,821,674 so far, according to Peterson, with Iron County being responsible for $606,062 as of Oct. 1. The rest is a mix of $5,618,488 in reimbursements from FEMA and Wisconsin Emergency Management, as well as a combination of grants, insurance pay-outs and other sources.
FEMA reimburses the county for 75 percent of eligible costs, with the state reimbursing another 12.5 percent.
The county’s current plan to build a 30-site campground across from the Harbor Lights tavern has an estimated price-tag of $3.4 million when everything campground-related from the beginning — such as engineering work and investigation into the other sites — is factored in.
“Everything that is campground from Day 1 is in that $3.4 million number. That’s not just construction of the campground,” Peterson said.
Unlike the rest of the rebuilding effort, FEMA announced in August it was considering the campground an improved project and only reimbursing a pre-determined amount, rather than its percentage of the final costs.
“How they’re determining that is, they are looking at the cost to rebuild the old campground on the old site and giving us credit for the cost it would take to raise it out of the flood plain,” Peterson said in September. “Legally, we can’t put it there. We don’t have that option. But that’s how they’re using ... their project cap.”
Wisconsin prohibits campgrounds from being constructed in a flood plain without an advanced warning system — something that isn’t feasible given Saxon Harbor’s proximity to Oronto Creek.
He said Wednesday FEMA has settled on the cost of the campground.
“At the last meeting, I told you FEMA was proposing $1,076,000. After a bunch of work, we got it all the way up to $1,920,000,” Peterson said. “So after you subtract off the insurance from that, that leaves us with a project cap of … $1,272,420. So we would get 87.5 percent of that for our campground project.”
The county’s portion of the capped funding is $215,928.
It would also be responsible for any of the costs beyond the $1.7 million cap. Under the $3.4 million plan, the county’s total responsibility would be $1,460,869.
“Any cost savings we can realize on this campground project comes directly off Iron County’s share, because FEMA’s capped out,” Peterson said.
While cost reductions are likely, Peterson said he wanted to give the board the worst-case scenario if the $3.4 million campground cost wasn’t reduced at all — a scenario where the county would be on the hook for $2,091,011 of the harbor’s total $14,221,674 cost.
While FEMA’s decision to cap funding for the campground means the county will possibly be responsible for more of the campground’s overall cost, Peterson said it also gives the county more freedom to change the plans and reduce the price.
“Because FEMA’s capping our project, they’re not quite as fussy on what we do,” Peterson said. “Because it’s an improved project, FEMA is saying, ‘As long as you build a campground, you can build whatever you want. Anything over $1.5 million is your problem.’”
