A new pier will be coming to Santa Cruz Island in Channel Islands National Park/NPS

The National Park Service has settled on plans for a new pier at Santa Cruz Island in Channel Islands National Park off California's coast, but construction issues, funding cycles, and avoiding the height of the tourist season mean the installation won't begin before late next year on the multi-million-dollar pier. 

The pier at the Scorpion Anchorage on East Santa Cruz Island has been in need of replacement for some time. It was closed in December 2015 due to damages caused by high surf. At the time, the "pier" was a flatbed railcar that had been installed as a temporary structure in 2000 and had deteriorated due to wave action and saltwater corrosion.

Then, in December 2016 the flatbed railcar was removed and replaced with an elevated aluminum gangway. At the time it was recognized that this was a short-term solution; it is still in use. In May 2017 the park settled on a replacement plan. While formal approval of that was expected last year after the 30-day public comment period had closed, that approval was just announced this past Thursday.

The new pier is expected to provide safer, more accessible, efficient, and sustainable access for visitors at Scorpion Anchorage. It also will provide more reliable access during low tide conditions for concessioner and NPS vessels. 

This temporary pier was installed in December 2016 and is still in use/NPS

“There’s no one real reason that is outstanding for it not being signed (sooner)," Sterling Holdorf, facilities manager for the park, said last week.

Some documents that needed to get signed for the project were misplaced when the park's former superintendent retired in 2017, and so some of the requisite signatures were not made as soon as possible, he said.

“We kind of had to deal with everything involved from him retiring to where all the other documents were living and where they were in the process," said Holdorf, who was not at the park at the time.

That said, the facilities manager said even had the decision document been signed last summer, the project most likely wouldn't have gotten off the design stage and into construction any sooner.

“There are a number of factors in play. One of them is we are finalizing the design right now," he said. "There are a couple final changes that are being made based on some test borings that were done. This has to do basically where bedrock is underneath the sea floor. It’s a lot deeper than we thought. Which means the piles will have to be longer and the wall thickness will have to be thicker.”

The new pier will be 300 feet long, the length of a football field, and more than three times the length of the current 90-foot pier. Along most of that length the pier will be 16 feet wide, said Holdorf, though at the very end it will be 30 feet wide. The 30-foot-width is needed because the park uses a crane truck to load and unload cargo from park boats, he said.

The construction, estimated to take between six and nine months, is planned for the winter months, when fewer visitors make the trip to Santa Cruz Island from the mainland, the facilities manager said. The Scorpion Anchorage is the most visited destination in the park, with about 65,000 people coming ashore each year to enjoy recreational activities such as hiking, picnicking, camping, kayaking, and swimming, according to park staff.

While the design work remains to be completed, the estimated cost of the pier ranges from $5 million to $10 million, an intentionally large range supplied by the Park Service so as not to influence the bidding process.

"This is a great day for visitors to Channel Islands National Park, as this significant step in the planning process makes way for a major improvement to critical park infrastructure," said Channel Islands Acting Superintendent Ethan McKinley last week after the design document was signed. “The new pier at Scorpion Anchorage will be the access point for most visitors to the park for years to come." 

A new pier will be located across from the old pier/NPS graphic