A Little Ludwig Goes A Long Way

The crew showed up yesterday and started tearing apart the dock today. All the new dock and breakwater components are on site. Pilings going in now. Over the next several weeks it will all hopefully be put back into place and we will have a new totally compliant dock, should last another 40 years or so.

The entire process of permitting and approval has been a total cluster… goat rodeo long exercise in patience. Glad we are done.

We have a dock on Lopez Island. It is old and falling apart due to years of rough weather. It is fully permitted by all state, local, and federal agencies. We want to replace it with exactly the same structure or something more eco-friendly of exactly the same size. It has been in place for more than 40 years.

We are on round 7? 8? of discussions with the various permitting agencies (and there are a lot — San Juan county, Army Corps of Engineers, Washington DNR, National Marine Fisheries Service, US Fish and Wildlife Service, and several more I am sure I forgot). We are employing an architect, a dock design/construction firm, a permit expeditor, a biological survey firm.

Currently we have to come up with a pile driving plan. Any kind of pile driver disturbs some form of wildlife. If we use a vibratory pile driver, we have to figure out the 120db attenuation distance for the sound, and then come up with a marine mammal (killer whales and stellar sea lions) monitoring plan. If we use a impact hammer pile driver, we have to determine the 150db attenuation distance for the sound, and then come up with a marbled murrelet (which look darn cute but I’ve never seen one) monitoring plan. Oh and of course our construction window is very limited to avoid disturbing the eagle nesting season. And we’ve already cleared the fisheries and seabed vegetation hurdles (tho they could always rise back up!)

This is not an exercise for the faint of heart or for the budget-conscious. You have to be committed!

Fall sailing schedule starts sunday. We were at the dock today and picked up the quota list — here you go

Heading up later this week and needed a reminder — A Little Ludwig Goes A Long Way » Blog Archive » Hiking on Lopez Island — the shark reef walk is still great and I want to hit Iceberg point again. This map provides some detail on finding the trails, but you really need the chamber handout. If I get one this week I will try to post a scanned copy of.

 first time I’ve ever seen an owl in nature. Apparently a juvenile barred owl. Very curious about us.

The WSDOT does a great job posting ferry schedules and making them available for cell phones. For some reason tho, the exact quotas for cars on each sailing are not online — you can get them in person at the ferry docks but no online presence. They are willing to email them to you tho, so here they are for Lopez this summer:

There are separate quotas for overheight vehicles, let me know if you need those.