Sims Gateway Project to Begin in May
The PUD has posted a request for bids to remove the poplar trees in front of the Boat Haven along Sims Way in Port Townsend. Bids from qualified tree crews are due on the 28th of April, with removal work to be completed in May.
Poplar tree removal is the first in a multistep, multi-year project to underground utility lines and expand the Port of Port Townsend boatyard. A collaboration between the City, Port, and PUD, the Sims Gateway and Boatyard Expansion Project is estimated to cost $2.3 million, with $1.3 million from Jefferson County’s Public Infrastructure Fund and the remaining $1 million from the Port, PUD and City.
According to the plan, PUD contractors will cut down the poplars and dig a trench for buried conduit to relocate transmission lines. The Port will manage the work of building a sidewalk, installing new trees and landscaping, and ballasting the expansion of the boatyard. As a last step, the PUD will pull new transmission lines through the conduit and remove the old overhead lines and poles.
The project involves only the south, or boatyard, side of Sims Way and does not include removing poplars on the Kah Tai Lagoon side of the road. There are no transmission lines on that side of the roadway.
The project plan was approved by all three local governments in 2022. In 2023, the City conducted an extensive stakeholder and public input process and amended its Comprehensive Plan to assure consistency with the Gateway Development Plan, a subarea plan focused on lower Sims Way that was adopted in 1993. The Port applied for the necessary permits from the City to begin the project on Nov. 21, 2024. The City completed its SEPA review during the first week of April.
According to General Manager Kevin Streett, removing the poplar trees and undergrounding the power lines improves the reliability and resiliency of the PUD’s power supply to Port Townsend and addresses multiple safety concerns.
“Because of the frequent contact between our transmission lines and the poplars over the last 10 years, the PUD regularly cuts off power to our overhead transmission lines along that section of Sims Way. But during storm seasons, and in the event of outages, it leaves us with one hand tied behind our back in terms of keeping power on in the City. Undergrounding the power solves a lot of problems for us and the City and Port.”
Undergrounding the powerlines also removes any opportunity for accidental contact between boats with tall masts, which Streett says has occurred in the past. “Luckily for everyone involved the power was shut down at the time.”
According to Eron Berg, Port of Port Towsend Executive Director, “this project resolves the danger of a metal mast touching the high-voltage lines, and the danger of electrical arcing into those poplar trees. At the end of the project, there will be no overhead power lines anywhere in the boatyard.”
Berg noted that the removal of the poplars, the overhead lines, and the transmission poles will allow the Port to expand about 25 feet towards Sims Way, increasing the overall size of the boatyard by one acre. He added the additional space would allow larger boats to be worked on in the area along Sims Way.