EDITOR’S NOTE: This report has been corrected to reflect that the Navy has prepared a draft environmental assessment.
PORT ANGELES — Building a new Navy pier at Ediz Hook could cost a Port Angeles Harbor fish farm $6 million in estimated lost earnings from the end of this year and into 2017, an Icicle Seafoods Inc. vice president said Monday.
The company will take the financial hit by being forced to harvest 30 percent of its Atlantic salmon — about 240,000 fish — by Dec. 1, about two months earlier than usual, when construction begins on the $25 million ballistic missile submarine-escort-vessel dock on the south side of Ediz Hook, Icicle’s Alan Cook said in a telephone interview.
As a result, each fish will lose significant mass at a time they are gaining about 1 pound a month.
“The marketplace punishes the smaller fish,” Cook said.
Harvest normally starts at 18 months of growth and runs through 22 months before they are removed from the pens, he added.
“We’ll have to empty them by Month 20,” he said.
“For us, it’s a very clear infringement on our commercial activity.
“We feel there should be some compensation, but whether there is or not, I don’t know.”
$25 million project
Construction is expected to last 18 months on the $25 million pier project on the southern face of Ediz Hook at Coast Guard Air Station/Sector Field Office Port Angeles, Robin Senner, National Environmental Policy Act coordinator at Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor, told Clallam County commissioners Monday during their work session.
The Navy might compensate Icicle for its loss.
“The Navy is exploring ways through which that compensation can occur,” Senner told commissioners.
A draft environmental assessment determined that there was no significant impact from the project.
The final environmental assessment will likely be released by May 31, Senner said.
He said the presumption is that it will mirror the draft’s conclusion of no significant impact.
When completed by spring or summer 2018, up to seven vessels ranging in length from 33 to 250 feet will dock at the pier to supplement the Navy’s Transit Protection System for submarines heading to and from the Pacific Ocean for exercises.
“When the large vessels approach the pier, they’ll be passing within 100 feet of the pens,” Cook said.
Third of harvest
The estimated 240,000 fish — a third of the 800,000 fish annually harvested by Icicle — are in six fish pens submerged about 400 feet south of the dock’s proposed location.
That’s too close for comfort, Cook said.
“They’ll be so close, they’ll be right on top of us,” he said.
“The collision risk is so great, it’s incompatible with that portion of the farm.”
Cook said 14 other company fish pens in the harbor will be less harmed by the vessel traffic.
The company has applied for 11 permits from county, state and federal officials to replace all the company’s pens 4 miles east of Ediz Hook and 1.5 miles offshore.
2017 targeted
Ideally, the pens would be in operation by spring 2017, Cook said.
Senner told Clallam County commissioners at their work session Monday that a final environmental assessment is being prepared that will focus on 106 comments that were received on the project.
“We are revising the wording of the draft as we prepare the final EA so that the language of the final EA is responsive to the comments and addresses them,” he said.
Sixteen of the comments were about the project’s economic impact.
All 16 were from Icicle Seafoods employees.
“We’ve kept open communication with the Navy,” Cook said.
“We don’t want to go the lawsuit route,” he said when asked if a lawyer was representing the company in those talks.
“We are trying to work in good faith to resolve this amicably.
“Ultimately, if we can move our farm [pens] to where we applied for permits, it would be a decent outcome for the community.”
Environmental mitigation for the project includes shoreline restoration plans drawn up with the Lower Elwha Klallam tribe, removal of a 16,900-foot rock jetty that extends 215 feet into the harbor, and removal of the former Thunderbird concession stand, now a derelict building.
Sea-level rise
Concerns were expressed about the pier by Ron Richards, a former Clallam County commissioner, and Bob Vreeland of Olympic Climate Action about the lack of information in the environmental analysis on sea-level rise caused by climate change.
“The EA is woefully inadequate” on the topic, Vreeland said, estimating the sea level would increase 6 feet by 2100.
The dock would be a quarter-mile inside the entrance gate to the Coast Guard station.
The project would include a new armory for light weapons and ammunition, a 10,000-gallon fuel storage tank and a single-story building that would include sleeping quarters for 20- to 30-person escort-vessel crews.
The escort vessels presently tie up at Port of Port Angeles terminals to comply with Coast Guard underway-hour limits and crew rest requirements between trips.
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Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 55650, or at pgottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.
