Unalaska, AK – The city council discussed the small boat harbor again Tuesday night and tried to hammer out the final details. They did make one major decision. They will build the smaller version of the harbor building that only has individual, locking shower units; separate men's and women's restrooms; a large workshop for harbor employees; and a small workstation. They will not build new harbor offices, though those could be added at a later date.

The other lingering questions concern the drive down working dock.

"One of the main questions is what are we going to do with the drive down float. We obviously want a drive down float for use by the smaller boats - 60 footers to work on their boats, on and off load gear," City Engineer Tyler Zimmerman explained. "So we're working through the process of what size that should be and where it should be in the harbor. It's just normal design process to work through."

The issue is that the drive down float will cut into the moorage space on one side of the C-float. Zimmerman said it's probably not possible to extend the float to allow for 320 feet of moorage on both sides of the float and to build the working dock. If they did, it would extend too far into the navigation space.

"One of the key things is the navigational aisle between the ends of the floats and the floating break water. You have to have a certain amount of distance there based on the size of the boat that will be using the harbor. And we're not going to cut into the safety margin of that just to get extra moorage," he said.

Eight boats will still be able to tie up to the C-float, but only six of them could be 150 feet long. Zimmerman said many community members and fishermen have stressed the importance of building the drive down working dock so it will not be left out of the plan.

Council also considered building a sheet pile working dock, but that would have to be placed outside of the inner harbor space and would require new permits that would delay the process. The council decided to include that project in a potential phase two of the plan and proceed with the drive down float. However, they have not decided how big the drive down portion will be. Zimmerman said it will be between 50 and 60 feet long by about that wide but they are waiting for more information from PND, the firm that is designing the inner harbor.

The council has to make a final decision on the drive down float by their meeting next Tuesday in order to ensure that the steel is ordered and the project is completed on time. The current price estimate for the drive down float is $2.2 million, but the hard dollar price will be available next week. The total price for the 70 boat inner harbor is about $44 million.

In other council business, the six member group decided to award the contract for the $3.3 million PCR expansion. They considered delaying the contract award, but if they had, the bids for the project would have expired. As it stands now, construction should begin around June 8 and the PCR will use the school facilities during the summer months.

The council also awarded a contract to Pacific Pile and Marine, the company that's building the inner harbor for the Carl E. Moses boat harbor, to replace the anodes on the city dock, the light cargo dock, and at the current small boat harbor. Zimmerman said the $1 million maintenance project is necessary at this time.

"The zinc anodes are just a big piece of metal that we weld to the face of the dock that will corrode instead of your dock corroding. You put them on boats, everything, so that the electrolysis in the water eats away at the anode, or the aluminum, as opposed to the sheet piles on the dock or the steel on the piling."

The council also awarded a $282,000 contract to design the new water treatment plant. Zimmerman told the council that the Larsen Consulting Group is a solid company that can produce a good design for the plant's federally mandated upgrades. He said they are on schedule for completing the project in time for the 2014 deadline.

City council will meet again on Thursday at 6 pm for a work session with HyettaPalma on the community vision statement. The next regular meeting will be on Tuesday, April 27. All meetings are held in the city council chambers at city hall.