Straus: MassDOT OKs $5M for N.B. pier

NEW BEDFORD – State transportation officials gave the go-ahead on Sept. 12 to using an unspent, $5 million federal earmark from 2005 for long-needed structural work at the city’s aging State Pier, a state legislator said.

“I’ve gotten confirmation from the state Department of Transportation that they have notified the feds that they are going to spend $5 million from that earmark on State Pier repairs,” state Rep. Bill Straus, D-Mattapoisett, told SouthCoast Today.

Straus said deficiencies, including a gaping sinkhole on the pier’s northeast corner, and the pier’s crumbling seawall and pilings, could be fixed in the upcoming federal fiscal year, which starts Oct. 1.

Straus is chairman of the Legislature’s Joint Committee on Transportation. He and four other SouthCoast state representatives requested using money from the decade-old earmark for State Pier in an August letter to MassDOT Secretary Stephanie Pollack.

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“This needed capital work is required to both maintain the shipping, fishing industry and ferry activity on the facility and to expand the size and weight of the shipping potential for the pier,” legislators wrote. •

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