Ocean Drive seawall project commencing

Several major public works projects around Homer were put into motion in 2020, with many coming to fruition this year. One, on Tazmania Court, will bring city water and sewer to that neighborhood for the first time. Another will upgrade the lone pump station that removes all the sewage from the Homer Spit. A different project in the same general vicinity -- a seawall to protect Ocean Drive properties -- will begin this week, according to Homer Public Works Director Jan Keiser.
    “We should start seeing big rock show up out at Mariner park, staged for placement against that existing seawall,” she said. “And I know the homeowners out there will be really relieved to see that.”)
    Keiser describes the problem faced by residents in the area.
    “So the folks on Ocean Drive have been experiencing erosion for a long time. Tidal- and wind-influenced erosion. And many, many years ago, the city, in a variety of relationships caused the construction of this seawall, that’s basically a retaining wall. And it started failing over time and more erosion ensued. And so the property owners in the city got together after many months of discussion and negotiation and just deliberation about what should be done,” Keiser said. “And we came up with this scheme to put armor rock against the existing seawall, which is similar to what the state did many years ago on the Spit Road. And this should break up the wave energy and protect the seawall.”
    The armor rock is being trucked to Homer and will be staged at Mariner Park on the Spit in preparation for placement.
    “And once they start moving rock, it should move very quickly,” Keiser said. “We're thinking of a couple of weeks or so, and the thing will be done and we'll be able to sit back and just sort of watch the weather flow.”
    Armor rock, blasted from a quarry near Seward, is large boulders designed to prevent a kind of erosion called “scouring” from eating away the sand and soil from underneath and behind the sea wall. Keiser says that is really what is being protected.
    “So, interestingly enough, the fiberglass retaining wall is actually going to still be there. It is still there. What happened to that is that the waves came up, hit the sea wall, hit the fiberglass panels and that energy it created scoured out the toe of the panels. And by scouring out the toe, it allowed the material behind the panels to leak away and be washed away. And that's what caused the failures,” she said. “So what we're doing is putting, first of all, filter fabric and then armor rock against the toe. So we're not protecting the wall so much as we're protecting the toe and preventing the scour. And that should that should then protect the whole installation.”
    You can hear more about the city of Homer’s public works projects on this week’s Coffee Table.