From left: Vice Mayor Diana Reddy; Port Commissioner Ralph Garcia; Port Commissioner Lorianna Kastrop; and Joan Dentler, a representative of Sen. Josh Becker’s office, cut the ribbon for Redwood City’s upgraded fishing pier.
Last January, Port of Redwood City officials were excited to open a new and improved public fishing pier to the community. Just months later, it was closed down due to safety risks from premature erosion and has remained that way for more than a year since.
Located at 460 Seaport Court, the concrete fishing pier was meant to offer the public the opportunity to catch and learn about local species. Grate flooring panels and wire cables were installed to allow visitors to see down to the water and informational signs educating the public on the types of fish living in the Bay such as leopard sharks, white sturgeon, jacksmelt, striped bass and bat rays were installed.
The port spent nearly $2 million and eight months to upgrade the pier, replacing a wooden one built in the 1960s. Power Engineering Construction Company, an Alameda construction firm, and Moffatt & Nichol, an engineering firm, were tapped to take on the project. Power Construction came with great references and had been in the industry for a long time and Moffatt & Nichol had been a longtime trusted partner, said Kristine Zortman, Port of Redwood City executive director.
They’d both assured the port that the project was done to the proper standard to last for decades to come before signs of wear and tear began to show. Within a month, Zortman said she began noticing corrosion and by May, orange barriers and caution tape were wrapped around its entrances. Rust had begun forming on the pier’s new railing system and wire cables were snapping, creating a safety hazard, Zortman said.
“You’ve got corrosion and you’ve got it breaking. The corrosion just makes it even weaker. So even though you might look at some of them and you don’t see the corrosion what you’ll start to notice is it’s inside and it’s failing. And you cannot have kids and people out here,” Zortman said.
When defects became apparent, Zortman said she began meeting with the firms regularly. But neither firm has been proactive in fixing the railing system — expected to cost around $150,000 — said Zortman, who asserts the firms are “kicking the can down the road.”
“We spent $2 million on an asset with two firms we felt were good partners — Moffatt & Nichol and Power Engineering — but for the fact that they can’t get this railing system figured out to what we feel would be safe for the public,” Zortman said. “We’ve just been spinning our wheels and I feel like they’re not giving it the priority and they’re not understanding that we’ve spent all this money on this asset and people are complaining it’s not open.”
Representatives with Power Engineering Construction Company and Moffatt & Nichol did not respond to requests for comment.
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According to Zortman, Moffatt & Nichol said it designed the pier to have the proper design for what the port was looking for and to be up to code. The cable railing was meant to carry up to 200 pounds of weight. Zortman said port officials don’t typically get involved in those types of details and put their trust in the firm given that they’re licensed for this type of work and have worked on other similar projects. Had they been, she said she would have suggested the system be able to carry greater weight.
As for Power Engineering Construction Company, Zortman said they claim to have installed a railing system with the grade of stainless steel called for in the design plans. After sending a sample out for testing by a third party, Zortman said the findings indicate the steel was of a lower grade.
The construction company argued it was properly certified by the Chinese manufacturer from which it was sourced. And Zortman acknowledged that the claim was true but regardless, the firms should be responsible for making the repair given that Power Engineering Construction Company selected the manufacturer.
The work is also still under warranty, Zortman said, noting that the port is now pursuing legal action against the firms with hopes of encouraging progress on the repairs. Once ordered, she said the new railing system would take about six weeks to arrive. Construction could take up to three months, Zortman said, calling that an optimistic time frame.
In the meantime, fishers have taken to other parts of the port to cast their lines. Some find their footing on rocks which Zortman said is a safety concern. Adding to the frustration is that most of the new fishing pier is structurally sound aside from some erosion caused by this winter’s heavy rain which Zortman said the construction firm eagerly came out to fix.
“What they delivered, other than the railing system, they did top-notch work,” Zortman said. “But it needs to be a system that can accommodate what we have here because people like to climb on it and that’s fine. They should be able to.”
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