Port girds for fight against Mother Nature

As Port Washington grapples with near record lake levels and an eroding bluff that has left it without a usable beach for the past several years and a hillside crumbled to within 10 feet of the Upper Lake Park road in spots, officials are again looking at ways to stabilize the north bluff.

“These are things we have to discuss sooner or later,” Public Works Director Rob Vanden Noven told the Board of Public Works on Tuesday. “The bluff is receding. I don’t think we can pretend it’s not happening.

“The bluff is encroaching on the roadway. We’re in our second or third year without a beach. The city’s eventually going to have to decide what we’re going to do with that road, the park and the beach.”

Given the fact that the city is in the process of developing a five-year capital plan and a comprehensive outdoor recreation plan, this is a good time to take a look at the issue, he said.

The board reviewed an unsolicited proposal for a $52,000 geotechnical study of the north bluff from Miller Engineers Scientists of Sheboygan, which has done extensive bluff stabilization work in the area.

The study would look at not only bluff stabilization but also ways to ensure the city has a usable north beach even when lake levels are high, Vanden Noven said.

“Establishing a beach that would be usable even with high lake levels would be a plus for the City of Port Washington,” Vanden Noven said. “The bluffs are going to get cut back one way or another, either by Mother Nature or by humans.”

Miller has proposed cutting back and vegetating the bare and unstable areas of the bluff along the southern two-thirds of the park and relocating about 700 feet of the roadway.

That, the firm said, will accommodate construction of a paved pedestrian walkway from the park to the beach.

The firm also proposes installing an 1,100 foot revetment at the toe of the southern portion of the bluff to prevent waves from eroding the stabilized hillside and using “beach nourishment” to help increase the sandy areas along the southern 600 feet of the existing beachfront.

The study would include a topographic survey, bathymetric survey of the lakebed, and include soil borings and slope stability and wave and shore erosion analyses. 

The $52,000 fee would also include developing schematic plans and a cost  estimate, as well as identifying potential grants to cover the cost of the work and help in applying for these grants.

Miller’s plan, Vanden Noven said, differs from a 2001 plan by JJR in several respects — it would not cut the bluff back into the park as far as the earlier plan, would cost less than the $10 million estimated for that plan and would not affect neighboring property owners.

“It’s a scaled back project that still accommodates our goals,” Vanden Noven said. “It seems to make sense.”

Board Chairman Jason Wittek asked how rapidly the bluff is eroding — a question that officials said doesn’t have a simple answer.

The average is a foot a year, Ald. John Sigwart said, although Ald. Mike Gasper said that in the last 20 years little has been lost.

But, Sigwart noted, the city has already had to relocate the Upper Lake Park road once due to bluff erosion.

The Miller proposal does not give a cost estimate for the final project, but Sigwart said “it’ll be in the millions.”

Gasper noted that the so-called beach nourishment plan will likely be an ongoing project for Port given the topography of the city’s lakefront.

“It’s much easier in theory than in practice,” Sigwart said.

Vanden Noven told the board that he will work with Miller to refine its proposal, noting that past studies may include some information that the firm included in its proposal.

“It seems like this is a good idea,” Wittek said. “It’s better to start now than later.”

City Administrator Tony Brown said he expects the board will take another look at the plan sometime early next year.

“This is really preliminary,” he said, adding the bluff stabilization is in the city’s capital project plan for 2025. “I think the biggest thing is getting a plan together.”

Bluff erosion is nothing new for the city. In the 1980s and 90s, it wasn’t uncommon for large portions of the bluff to collapse.

In April 1993, a huge mudslide took hundreds of thousands of pounds of earth down the side of the bluff and completely across the beach, leaving a mound of clay-like earth roughly 12 feet high.

More recently, the slumping hillside blocked the entrance to the beach.   

Various bluff stabilization concepts have been studied through the years, culminating in the 2001 study by JJR that called for cutting back the bluff significantly and constructing breakwaters and revetments to protect the base of the bluff at a cost of $4.3 million.

The plan was doomed not just because of the high pricetag but also because many people feared it would reduce the size of Upper Lake Park too much and destroy the beach below.