THE ONCE AND FUTURE ROAD
The Park Road is approximately 5 miles long from the corner near Mountain View Road from Gustavus into Bartlett Cove. It has been intermittently impassable over the years, due to poor ditching, drainage, flooding, and grading.
The preferred alternative for Bartlett Cove development included "rerouting the Bartlett Cove road to minimize shoreline impacts and further separate park visitors from employee housing." The NPS planned to "realign the existing road, within the boundaries of the Bartlett Cove developed area, and convert the old roadbed into a coastal trail."
Road reconstruction and/or upgrade outside of the Bartlett Cove area was further analyzed in a separate environmental assessment." In the words of the final alternative description, "In general, construction activities (in Bartlett Cove) will be planned to minimize ground disturbance and vegetation, wildlife and visitor impacts." In the words of Superintendent James M. Brady 3/10/98, : "The proposal will not have a significant effect on the human environment. Environmental impacts that would occur are minor and temporary in nature."
Funding for widening, ditching, culverts, and the new spur bypassing the beach road was obtained through Federal Highways Administration funds.
As Editor of this edition of the Oystercatcher, and having watched the road development over the past year, I'd like to give you my own first hand impression of the road project today:
Drive from Gustavus to Bartlett Cove and you may not recognize where you are. A wide treeless expanse is bordered by partial ditches and miles of black plastic fencing. Black ash is all that remains of numerous immense intense stump and brush pyres which lined the road and sent black pillars of smoke into the sky with red jaws glaring night and day for months. The road just east of the old dump site lies in two levels, to be corrected in the future by shaving down the north length of road and adding to the south. At the bottom of the hill, at Alder Creek, the road turns left, towards the "new" housing, but continues through a new "through-cut area" slash up and over, reconnecting with the original road just across from the entrance to the lodge. Glacial erratics, destined to be crushed into finer rock aggregate to be part of the eventual asphalt mix, for now sit exposed as sentinels. An incredible cairn of them was seen briefly following Sept. ll, created by some giant's hand, or was it the machinery of a S.E. Builder's backhoe, in a statement of loss.
According to Steve Anderson, engineer of the NPS, the plan for the remains of this winter, 2001-2002 includes l) grading and maintaining the existing road; 2)repairing the culvert ends - the original culverts were improperly ordered; and 3) crushing rock and boulders and producing aggregate stock piles to make asphalt.
The road contractors, S.E. Road Builders Inc. of Haines, can return as soon as January 4, 2002 to resume road construction work but will likely return in March to:
1) haul material and build up the road using material from the through-cut area and the old dump site, not known as the park gravel pit/maintenance site;
2) complete ditches;
3)put down select borrow material;
4) do final grading;
5) put on topsoil on the slopes, using material now stockpiled in the pit;
6) lay down asphalt-treated base (ATB) containing approximately 3500 cubic yards or all of the contaminated soil excavated from the old tank farm and various sites at the Park;
7) top this with a 2" mat of asphalt from the asphalt plant, which will be located at the old dump site;
8) seed
9) paint lines on the road
Originally the project was slated for completion June 12. It is now scheduled to be completed July 31st.
The original plans for a bike lane were cut from the project in the Environmental Assessment stage.
If you're looking forward to driving the park road during the summer of 2002, look forward to only one lane following a pilot car for safety. It will be a long haul.
