Collapsed pier to cost nearly $2M to remove

Summey insists that Navy authority help foot bill

It could cost North Charleston nearly $2 million to demolish a partially collapsed pier on the old Navy base.

City Council's Finance Committee on Thursday awarded a bid of $1.9 million to Testa Corp. of Charleston to remove Pier Alpha.

The U.S. Coast Guard and state Department of Health and Environmental Control told the city last summer that the pier must be removed before it collapses completely into the Cooper River, possibly affecting shipping lanes for military and commercial cargo.

The crumbling 500-foot wood and concrete structure near Noisette Creek collapsed on the channel side of the river last summer.

"In the event of further failure, we may use our federal authority to issue a Captain of the Port order requiring the city of North Charleston to take immediate action to locate and remove any pier debris, floating or sunken, that poses a hazard to navigation within the port," Coast Guard Capt. M.F. McAllister wrote in a letter to the city last year.

"It's an accident waiting to happen," Mayor Keith Summey said.

The structure is padlocked behind a fence. Its fragile wooden decking leads about 100 feet from the shoreline before becoming concrete poured on wooden pilings. Some of those pilings gave way last summer and caused a huge section of the pier's concrete decking and an abandoned rail line to collapse.

It has deteriorated further since last fall, said city Assistant Public Works Director Mike Dalrymple. The damage is not clearly visible from shore, but passing ships certainly can see it.

The Navy abandoned the pier in 1996. The city acquired it six years later after lawmakers gave North Charleston the northern half of the 1,600-acre former Charleston Naval Base. Much of the southern half went to the State Ports Authority for a new cargo terminal.

The city wants to rebuild the pier at some point, Summey said.

Summey insisted again that the Charleston Naval Complex Redevelopment Authority should pay half the cost of removing the pier since the city acquired the structure from the agency set up by lawmakers to shepherd the Navy base through renewal.

RDA acting chairman Lou Mintz said Thursday that the agency's position has not changed.

"We will not touch it," Mintz said. "We did not guarantee any property that we transferred and we do not warrant it. If they want assistance, they should go to the General Assembly."

Demolition is expected to begin in a couple of months and could take up to six months, Dalrymple said.

Reach Warren Wise at 745-5850 or wwise@postandcourier.com.