Marina struggles against a fickle lake

Lynn Doan

Monday, June 7, 2004 | 10:01 a.m.

The Las Vegas Boat Harbor has relocated about 60 times in the past five years, searching for higher water levels as Lake Mead recedes.

Now it's battling too much water -- 6-foot waves pounding its docks.

Two years ago marina owner Bob Grippentog was forced to make the harbor's biggest move, to Horsepower Cove off Hemenway Bay to escape the lake's expanding shoreline.

But the harbor's new location, which is exposed to stronger winds and more open lake, has cost Grippentog more than $1 million to protect his docks and boats from damaging waves.

On stormy days, dock manufacturer Atlantic-Meeko said, waves more than 6-feet come charging down on the docks.

"(The marina) could've been completely destroyed in a major storm," said Atlantic-Meeko Project Manager Harvey Bollinger, who oversaw the construction of a wave-resistant docking system for Grippentog last October.

Each winter Lake Mead sees about three major storms, Grippentog said.

But even now, at the beginning of the summer, Grippentog said he regularly sees 3-foot waves crash toward the docks. Even those cause damage, he said.

Before Atlantic-Meeco installed a 1,000-foot dock system with attenuators -- devices that reduce the size of waves -- Grippentog said wave damage was costing him "an arm and a leg" to repair.

"Waves are very, very unforgiving," he said. "They tossed and turned, ripped off metal pieces of the dock, and these boats were getting tossed and beaten up."

The harbor repairs any wave damage to boats at no additional cost to owners.

Greg Larson, 37, docks his two-story boat at the harbor and said that he's seen his part of the marina severely battered by waves.

"I've seen waves pull apart some of the ropes. They pulled a couple of those cleets right off the docks," said the Henderson resident, a union construction worker who works primarily on the Strip. Cleets are metal hooks tacked to the docks that owners tie the lines from their boats to.

But those problems were all before Bollinger and Grippentog collaborated to construct a tire wall around the harbor along with a 5-foot cement slab beneath the outermost dock.

The three rows of recycled tractor tires, tied together and stuffed with Styrofoam, serve as the first line of defense. Surrounding the entire width of the marina, the floating wall can withstand waves up to 8 feet.

Grippentog collected most of the abandoned tires from local construction companies that would have otherwise had to pay junk yards to carry them away.

The tires diminish most of the waves' power. But just in case a few stronger waves survive, Atlantic-Meeko designed a swinging concrete slab that is hinged to the bottom of the outer dock. The device pushes the waves back out toward the lake.

With both devices in place, a 6-foot wave is knocked down to 18 inches.

"The wave becomes just a roll instead of the folding effect," Grippentog said.

Without the wave system, Grippentog said, he would have been out of business by now.

Boaters wouldn't want to store their equipment at such a vulnerable harbor and, with the ever-lowering water level, Grippentog is running out of places to move within the harbor, he said.

"The lowering water level is still a big struggle," he said.

For every move, Grippentog said, he spends an average of $15,000 to $20,000, except the marina's large-scale move to Hemenway Harbor, which cost more than $2 million.

Even with the recent improvements, Grippentog found himself moving the marina farther out Wednesday because experts are still expecting another 10-foot drop in the lake level.

Boat owner and harbor maintenance employee Tim Keese, 25, spent his morning replacing the docks' anchors, which must be cranked up and down for each move.

"We will probably end up moving again by the end of the summer anyway," said Keese, who lives in Boulder City. "But I'm not too worried."

Neither is Larson, who planned to spend the afternoon fishing from the deck of his boat after having already landed a "good-sized striper."

When asked if he still enjoyed the lake, despite the harbor moves and crashing waves, Larson said, "Oh yeah."