Fearing the effects of the jetty’s deteriorated sections, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers approved a program to complete repairs that would prevent a jetty breach for the next 10 to 15 years. Kiewit Pacific Co., a subsidiary Kiewit Corporation, is constructing the $21 million project to repair the mouth of the Columbia River South Jetty.
The project involves placing about 145,000 tons of jetty stone in two areas along a 5,300-foot section of the jetty that extends into the Pacific Ocean on the south side of the river, just west of Astoria, Ore. The project will restore the jetty to 30 feet wide at the top.
The jetty stone for the project comes from a single source with sizes up to 30 tons each. Kiewit is blasting, splitting, sorting and loading the stone and transporting it by barge to the jetty. The barge travels through Puget Sound and the Strait of Juan de Fuca to the Pacific Ocean, down the Washington Coast and through the mouth of the Columbia before reaching its destination in Astoria.