SGI fishing pier repairs weeks away from completion

It looks like it will be at least another three weeks before the repair work on the St. George Island fishing pier will be finished.

The county now estimates the work should be complete by mid to late September.

The project was supposed to be finished by early July – it is now over 30 days past the original completion date.

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.

A company called the Gulf group was hired to replace the missing section of bridge with a 16 foot wide timber pier held up by concrete piles.

Commissioners say the project has been a fiasco – last week the subcontractors threatened to walk off the job if they weren’t paid, even though the county has paid all of the invoices it has received.

Alan Pierce said the pay issue has been addressed.

The repairs are costing about 573 thousand dollars.

The Gulf group is losing 300 dollars a day for every day past the completion date that the project is not finished, but the county said the next time they have a project like this they are going to make the penalty much higher.

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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