Local
Resilience study is just one element in larger Grand Marais Harbor plan
At a recent open house held at City Hall, area residents had the chance to look at several design options that grew out of a resilience study focused on the Grand Marais Harbor.
City of Grand Marais Sustainability Coordinator Shane Steele told WTIP that the study came about when the city received a grant from the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Cities Initiative. The grant covered a resilience study and preliminary plans to address issues identified therein. Steele said the city opted to have the study focus on the sheet piling wall in Boulder Park.
He added that restoring the wall to prevent further erosion in the harbor was one part of a much larger master planning process that he anticipates the city will undertake once the old Coast Guard building is conveyed to the city. The Coast Guard has notified the city of its intention to give the building and land to the city, but has not set a concrete timeline for when it will happen.
Steele added that as the city considers how best to address the issues with the sheet piling wall, there is a concurrent project it has undertaken along with Cook County Soil and Water Conservation District, the Army Corps of Engineers, and the Grand Portage Band of Lake Superior Chippewa to study and address erosion in the East Bay.
As for what is next with the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Cities Initiative study, the grant included evaluation of the issues relating to the sheet piling wall in Grand Marais Harbor, and some potential solutions. The city was presented with three options, which they in turn presented to the public at the April open house, and weighed the merits of the options. Steele said that moving forward, the city is looking to hybridize the plans. The grant will also cover planning and design work up to a 30% complete mark, meaning the city will need to finish the design work before any project would officially be undertaken.
The partial design, however, works with the city plan of redesigning that entire side of the harbor. “We will need to undertake just an entire master planning process of the whole point, the whole, you know, Boulder Park area, parking area, Coast Guard station and old Marina, and just completely rethink that whole area,” Steele said. “There will be a huge planning process, lots of public comment available, lots of opportunities for folks to express their thoughts and interest about that part of the city, and this little piece of that, the sheet piling wall, will be folded into that whole bigger project.”
WTIP’s Kirsten Wisniewski spoke with City of Grand Marais Sustainability Coordinator Shane Steele about the harbor resilience study. Audio of that interview is below.
