Franklin county commission approves SGI fishing pier repair plan

Franklin County Commissioners have approved a plan that could have the St. George Island fishing pier re-opened to the public by next summer.

The pier, which is actually a section of the old St. George Island bridge, was damaged in late June during Tropical Storm Debby when it was hit by a barge belonging to the Orion Marine Group, a company that was doing work in the bay for Progress Energy.

The barge knocked out three sections of roadway, leaving a 165 foot gap that makes it impossible for people to access much of the pier.

Last week the county commission approved a repair plan designed by the Prebble Rish engineering firm that would replace the missing section of bridge with a 16 foot wide timber pier held up by concrete piles.

Greg Prebble, who introduced the plan, said the project would cost a little over 600 thousand dollars to complete, if there is no additional damage to the pier underwater.

If all goes well, the permitting and repair work would take about 8 months and have the pier open for fishermen by June the 1^st.

Franklin County has a fund of money set aside for maintenance and repairs to the fishing piers – that fund has over 1.6 million dollars in it.

The board agreed to pay for the project out of that fund of money, and added an additional 100 thousand dollars to the cost in case there is damage underwater that needs to be repaired.

County commissioners say they fully intend to recoup most, if not all, of the expense from the company that owns the barge.

Commissioners hope that Orion will decide to pay for the repairs itself, saving the company and the county a lot of money and time that would instead be wasted in litigation.

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