Army Corps to throw more stone at breakwater

A crew is expected to begin placing additional armor stone along Port Washington’s south breakwater this week — one of two waterfront projects along the city’s lakeshore beginning in July.

We Energies is also expected to begin dredging its intake channel to remove sand and undersized stone and placing new armor stone on top of the existing structure just east of its power plant.

“There’s a lot going on,” Port Washington Public Works Director Rob Vanden Noven said.

The work on the south breakwater has been in the planning for several years, he said.

The Army Corps of Engineers has contracted with Roen Salvage to place about 8,000 tons of armor stone — large rock that absorbs the wave action before it hits the south breakwater.

The project is intended to stabilize the south breakwater by resettling dislodged stone and placing additional armor stone to maintain operational integrity, according to a letter from the Army Corps.

The project, it states, will provide a more stable and long-lasting structure and better maintain safe passage for boats entering and exiting the harbor.

The 390-foot-long south breakwater was built in 1936.

Coal Dock Park will be the staging area where the armor stone is stored and the barge kept when crews aren’t working, Vanden Noven said.

Work was expected to begin Tuesday, but weather delayed the start, he said.

“This project is highly weather dependent,” he said.

Vanden Noven said the city project, which is being paid for by the Army Corps, is expected to take about three weeks to complete.

The city is still working with the Army Corps to get additional armor stone placed along the lake side of the north breakwater, Vanden Noven said.

“That’s a work in progress,” he said.

The We Energies project is being done to maintain the south jetty, a portion of the breakwater that makes up the power plant’s cooling water intake structure.

The jetty keeps fish, algae and debris from the plant’s intake, but gaps in the material, settling and undersized stones are causing debris to wash over the jetty, according to the utility.

The work will all be done from land, Vanden Noven said, and will require the path between the Coal Dock Park and the bird sanctuary to the south to be closed when crews are at work.

“That’s essentially their working zone,” Vanden Noven said.

That project is expected to be completed by Nov. 11.