U.S. Rep. Derek Kilmer got a rocky review of Boat Haven’s troubled breakwater during a visit to Port Townsend on Friday.

Aboard “Red Head,” the 56-foot whale-watching boat owned by Puget Sound Express, the congressman got a waterside tour of the breakwater from the Port Townsend Bay side as white-topped waves from last week’s high winds crashed into the breakwater and the boat.

Port of Port Townsend officials said the breakwater has undergone restoration in 1983 and 2016, but it is now in urgent need of repair.

The breakwater is the outer edge of protection for the marina at Boat Haven, the Coast Guard Cutter Osprey, as well as the upland portion of the Port Townsend boatyard.

Eron Berg, executive director of the Port of Port Townsend, has a simple breakdown of the breakwater repair project.

“It’s a pile of rock. We need a new pile of rock,” he quipped. “The old pile is not working.”

Repairs to the main breakwater at Boat Haven are included in the port’s 2023 capital project budget.

According to the port, the eastern 600 feet of the main breakwater was originally constructed in 1935. But that stretch suffered considerable damage during a December 2018 storm.

Berg said the breakwater is critical to the boatyard, which accounts for 20 percent of the jobs in Jefferson County.

The breakwater is a cedar coffer dam, filled with sand and coated with rock, and attached to it is almost 2,000 feet of modern rubble-and-mound structure built by the Army Corps of Engineers in the 1960s.

If the breakwater fails, water access is lost to the whole operation of the marina and boatyard, Berg said.

Kilmer said the breakwater repair project is one of more than a dozen that he hopes to get funding for in Congress’ upcoming spending bill.

“We’re allowed to put forward 15 projects across the whole district. And this is one of the 15,” Kilmer said.

“It’s important for jobs,” Kilmer added.

“The marine trades are so important in Jefferson County,” the 6th District congressman explained. “This is a project that’s important to the Coast Guard; important for taxpayers, so the cost of doing this isn’t solely born by the folks here.”

“This is a win, win, win,” Kilmer said of the breakwater project at the end of the short boat tour March 26, which had Port Commissioner Pete Hanke at the helm of the Red Head. 

Kilmer said proposed projects must fall within an allowable range of funding.

The congressman said he was optimistic that the project could get a boost from Congress. He noted his success in prior years in proposing projects that eventually received federal funding.

“Last year I went 15-for-15. The year before that, we were limited to 10, and
I went 10-for-10,” Kilmer said.

He said it was hard to know what would actually be funded.

“Every year is a different year,” Kilmer said.

The push now is to get projects included in the upcoming spending bill under committee consideration, which eventually must be passed by the U.S. House and Senate before an approval by President Biden.

“The timeframe is hopefully before the end of the year,” Kilmer said.

Finishing a spending bill isn’t likely before the end of the fiscal year, he added.