Deep-water dock nears completion

MAT-SU -- The deep-water dock at Port MacKenzie is just a few weeks away from completion, despite setbacks along the way.

"I'm confident we'll be done before Christmas," Port Director Marc Van Dongen said Friday.

Workers at the port finished driving the last piles on the project Wednesday, and all the fenders are in place on the face of the dock. What's left, Van Dongen said, is pouring concrete in the piles for added strength. That task, he said, should be done early this week. From there, much of the work is relating to wrapping up the details.

The project has, for the most part, progressed according to schedule, despite problems that threatened to cause delays. The borough joined in a cooperative agreement with NPI LLC, a local company shipping wood chips to markets in Asia, in order to purchase long-lead-time items such as metal pilings in order to speed along the project. A worldwide steel shortage and railroad complications evaporated much of the lead time.

The shipments were staggered, allowing crews to work on the project as additional shipments came in, but an inspection in October of the drilled piles revealed cracks in the welded metal that reduced the stability of the dock.

"We took about two weeks to analyze the situation," Van Dongen said. "We had a lab in Anchorage come up with new welding procedures."

Test results showed that the metal was apparently not heated enough during the welding process. A new welding technique, involving heating up the metal to high temperatures and allowing it to cool very slowly to allow nitrogen bubbles to escape the metal before cooling, was developed and put into use.

Heaters, Van Dongen said, were wrapped around the metal dolphins and superheated to more than 800 degrees, a process that involved constructing scaffolding on each dolphin for workers to stand on, a process that in itself can take more than a day. It takes seven to eight hours, Van Dongen said, to properly heat the metal and the dolphin must stay hot for at least four hours after the welds are completed, after which the temperature can be dropped a specific number of degrees over several additional hours.

Van Dongen said Peratrovich, Nottingham and Drage Inc., the company that designed the dock, added triangular gussets to the design, which will add additional strength to the welds.

The borough is negotiating with MKB Constructors, the company that successfully bid to work on the project, over how the process of repairing the cracked welds will be paid for, Van Dongen said.

"We're splitting it," Van Dongen said, although he said the agreement is not yet final. "What we're paying for is to bring up these special heaters … and a consultant."

The consultant, Van Dongen said, showed the workers how the process should be done to ensure strong welds. Van Dongen said the borough is sharing the responsibility of the retrofitting because the borough was responsible for delays.

"The whole reason we're working right now is because the steel is late," Van Dongen said. "It's not his fault the steel was late."

The new techniques have been used on the recently placed piles, Van Dongen said, and a few more dolphins must be fixed before the dock is complete.

One concern raised this fall did not have much effect on the dock's construction, Van Dongen said. Borough officials, early on, expressed concern that the project may be delayed due to beluga whale migration patterns. Van Dongen said workers saw about a dozen pods of whales travel past the port, but only one was within 2,000 feet of the project, the point at which workers are required to halt. It caused a delay of about an hour, Van Dongen said, much less than was expected during the planning process.

"We're still going to finish one month early," Van Dongen said.

As the project nears completion, Van Dongen said a dedication ceremony is being planned for the third week of January, when NPI LLC is expected to ship its first shipment of wood chips out of the facility.

Contact Rindi White at rindi.white@frontiersman.com.