Nome Port Director Joy Baker updated the Port Commission last week on several items relating to the Port of Nome. The Nome Deep Draft Port is one of the larger projects on Baker’s radar.

“One of the larger things in my port director and capital projects report to the commission was to provide an update of the 95% design and spec packages that are due to the (Army Corps of Engineers) on Feb. 25,” Baker said. “What I mean is two design teams are working for the city to design our local service facilities. It will be CRW on utilities and PND engineers on the docks of the road. Those packages are due by Feb. 24.”

The project’s 100% design milestone has been pushed back to May, Baker said.

“There’s a multi-layer of approval that the Corps must get when they route it uphill through their chain of command,” Baker said. “(It’s) between division and headquarters, with questions coming back to the city’s designers and then the 100% package due by May 3.”

Regarding Nome’s causeway bridge repairs and sediment under the bridge, the Corps is preparing a contract solicitation to be released in the coming weeks for those repairs, with work to be completed in the summer of 2023, Baker said. Sediment that has accumulated under and west of the bridge is being folded into the new maintenance dredging solicitation in fall 2023 for the 2024 through 2026 contract.

“Right now, it’s under the Corp’s purview, they do all the dredging, and they actually own and operate and do repair maintenance on the bridge over the causeway,” Baker said. “They have actually been trying to make that award within, I believe, the final contract of this year’s Nome maintenance dredging, which is Alaska Marine Excavation.”

The next Nome Port Commission meeting is set for March 16.

Image at top: PND’s updated model rendering for the design of a potential Arctic Deep Draft Port in Nome. Photo from Port of Nome, used with permission (2020).