St. George Island fishing pier work expected to be complete in mid to late August

It looks like it will be mid to late August before the repair work on the St. George Island fishing pier will be finished.

Engineers with Prebble Rish said that it will take at least that long to finish the job – not only is the company that was hired for the project far behind schedule, but there are also some problems with the pilings that will require more work to make sure the structure is stable.

The pier, which is actually a section of the old St. George Island bridge, was damaged in June of 2012 during Tropical Storm Debby when it was hit by a barge.

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 October the county commission approved a repair plan to replace the missing section of bridge with a 16 foot wide timber pier held up by concrete piles.

A company called the Gulf Group was hired to do the repairs.

At this point the company has removed the rubble from the bay bottom and has driven one pile so there is still plenty more work to be done.

And on Tuesday the county had to approve a change order for the project that will allow three more piles to be added.

Engineers said that change is necessary to insure that the pier is stable.

The additional piles will add about 17 thousand dollars to the cost of the project, bringing the total to over 573 thousand dollars.

The county will get some of that money back – the Gulf group has to return 300 dollars every day after July 1^st that the project is not complete.

The work is being paid for through a fund set up to maintain the fishing pier and the county is taking legal action against the owner of the barge that damaged the pier.

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