Corps proposes raising and rebuilding Ketchikan's Bar Harbor breakwaters

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers released a draft plan Thursday to raise and rebuild both rock breakwaters at Ketchikan's Bar Point Harbor, known locally as Bar Harbor. The agency opened a 30-day comment period on the draft environmental assessment and an unsigned finding that the project would cause no significant environmental impact, meaning a full environmental impact statement would not be required.

The harbor is a commercial fishing base with reserved moorage for 520 boats. A 1,100-foot detached breakwater and a 700-foot stub breakwater shield it from the south.

The Corps built both breakwaters in 1958, and inspectors have found the rock on each deteriorating. Harbormaster photos from a 2015 storm showed waves washing over them at high tide. A Corps survey that fall found their tops 1 to 4 feet below design height in several places.

The proposed option, Alternative G, would raise both breakwaters from 23 feet to 25.5 feet above mean lower low water, the average of each day's lowest tide, and widen their tops to 7 feet. Crews would remove about 42,000 cubic yards of old rock and reuse it to build a toe berm, a rock shelf along the seaward base of the detached breakwater meant to steady it and resist undercutting. They would then place about 44,000 cubic yards of new rock. A Corps filing with the state estimates a start of Oct. 1, 2027, and completion by April 1, 2032.

The Corps kept a fallback, Alternative H, which would repair only the detached breakwater. "Alternative H was retained because funding may not be available to construct repairs to both the stub and detached breakwater," the assessment says. It gives no cost estimate.

The abandoned 69-foot seiner Prince, resting on the stub breakwater since 2020, would be removed. Up to 0.1 acre of eelgrass would be lost, and the berm would turn about 1 acre of sand and shell-hash bottom into rocky habitat. Safeguards include silt curtains, keeping equipment off mapped eelgrass, a 100-meter marine mammal exclusion zone and boat speed limits.

Comments are due Nov. 21 under the Corps' notice, though its news release lists Nov. 22. No public meeting is scheduled; anyone wanting one must ask in writing during the comment period and explain why.