SITKA Administrative History

Chapter 5:
SITKA NATIONAL HISTORICAL PARK, 1966-1986 (continued)

Storm damage and erosion

Over the last twenty years, several storms have damaged the park's trails. An usually fierce storm on Thanksgiving Day, 1984, cause an estimated $8,000 damage to the trails. Most recently, a storm early in 1987 damaged the trail and knocked down a number of trees in the park.

Erosion continued to threaten several of the park's resources. Offshore gravel-dredging operations in Sitka Sound, described in the preceding chapters, continued intermittently until 1978. In 1979 the owner of a trailer court just north of the park illegally put fill into Indian River to enlarge the size of his property. In 1980 he sought a permit from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for the action. Park service personnel objected to is suing the permit and argued that the action had accelerated erosion of the bank where the fort site was located. In 1981 the Corps of Engineers ordered the fill removed because the permitting process was not followed. The trailer court owner ignored the order. The results of all these actions was that the river established a meander that intensified erosion of the bank adjacent to the Kiksadi fort site. The rate of erosion was two to eight feet annually. The park service's objections did prevent the several proposed gravel and sand operations for tideland areas near the park from receiving permits. [311]

The Sitka Native community wrote to the park superintendent about the erosion threat to the fort site in 1980 and again in 1982. In his 1982 letter, Frank O. Williams, Jr., President of the Southeast Alaska Indian Cultural Center Board of Directors, expressed the opinion that the original purpose of the park, to commemorate the 1804 battle, was being ignored. He acknowledged that the money for the Russian Bishop's House was needed to prevent the loss of the structure and that the park service had new parks to administer at the same time that the erosion problem became acute. Nevertheless, he appealed for action to preserve the fort site. [312] Sitka park service personnel asked for assistance. In 1982 Denver Service Center staff conducted an erosion control study. Various alternatives to control the problem were considered.

The alternative preferred by the National Park Service, protective rip-rap placed 50 percent in the river and 50 percent on the river bank aroused objections by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. That department wanted all rip-rap placed on the river bank. Its preferred stabilization method however, was the use of vertical steel sheet piling. Park service officials opposed the piling on the grounds that it would be unsightly, that bank soils could not adequately support it, and that it would provide only marginal and essentially unmeasurable benefit to spawning salmon, the vast majority of which spawned upstream of the proposed rip-rap. In the end, Coastal Zone Management staff in the Office of Governor ruled in favor of the alternative preferred by the National Park Service.

In June 1985 contractors installed 4,600 cubic yards of toed-in armor shot-rock rip-rap and backfill along the river bank for stabilization. In his annual report for that year Superintendent Suazo wrote that the rip-rap replacement represented the "culmination of over 42 years of effort to properly stabilize the banks of the Indian River." [313] The next year 1,300 cubic yards of stones were scattered along the river bank for stabilization.