The contractor for the Port of Tacoma has begun driving the first of 361 piles in the Blair Waterway as part of the expansion of the Washington United Terminals wharf.
Seattle-based Manson Construction plans to continue with the project's pile driving from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. weekdays and 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Saturdays in an effort to complete the work before the annual fish migration season that begins in mid-February halts work until July.
The wharf project will see the extension of the existing 2,000-foot WUT wharf by another 600 feet and allow the new section to accommodate two large ZPMC gantry cranes Hyundai Merchant Marine added in January 2009. WUT is an independently operated terminal services company wholly owned by Hyundai Merchant Marine America.
The construction schedule calls for the wharf to be completed in July 2011.
In other concurrent work, port contractors Tucci and Sons of Tacoma were scheduled to work through Monday night to complete excavating intertidal channels in the Hylebos Waterway and remove an existing 300-foot berm for fish habitat.
The Hylebos Creek channel work is part of a 25-acre project to create freshwater and intertidal marsh, forested upland and riparian habitat, according to the port. The site eventually will include public access that allows the habitat to be viewed from a platform.
