Port and harbors will put in security camera system

The Port and Harbors Department plans to select a company this month to design a surveillance camera system for installation at Wrangell harbors by the end of the year.

The department has about $407,000 from two federal grants — $148,000 in fall 2020 and $259,468 in fall 2021 from the Department of Homeland Security — for the design, purchase and installation of a security camera system.

It’ll help keep an eye on things, and prevent theft and illegal dumping of garbage, such as a ‘70s-era Volkswagen Beetle chopped into pieces found in a dumpster at Shoemaker Bay nearly a decade ago. Every couple of years the department finds entire refrigerators in harbor dumpsters, Port Director Steve Miller said Monday.

“The refrigerators just barely fit with the lid open. They throw them in whole,” he said.

Miller said he has a total of five people on staff, and the workers conduct dock checks seven days a week on about 20 dumpsters. The first hour of what ends up being a two-and-a-half-hour dock check is spent combing through dumpsters, checking for illicit junk.

Boat owners working on projects will toss fiberglass chunks into the dumpsters, and parts and pieces of boats that should go into the back of their truck and hauled to the dump. Line and rope are also unacceptable and people dump “bundles and bundles of rope,” Miller said. “It’s a never ending deal.”

“We have a huge garbage bill,” he said. “I know for a fact people pull into Heritage or Shoemaker and bring their household garbage.”

Hopefully, with the Port and Harbors Department moving forward within the next three or four months on a design firm, they can have the surveillance cameras up and running by the end of the year to deter people from tossing unacceptable items since they’ll be caught on camera, Miller said, and his staff can go back to doing their actual jobs instead of dumpster duty.

Part of the delay in getting the system selected was the pandemic, but also securing a 20% borough match for the grants.

The borough advertised for the design work and the department plans to choose the winning bidder April 15.