Mayor Nickels announces new evidence that wood lice have caused significant damage to Alaskan Way Seawall

June 12th, 2002 - Mayor Greg Nickels announced today that recent inspections done on the Alaskan Way Seawall have revealed significant damage to the supporting structure by wood lice.

The mayor invited news photographers to see damaged revealed by a test pit dug on Tuesday. Engineers found destruction to structural timbers from Gribbles, underwater crustaceans with 7 pairs of legs and 4 pairs of mouthparts, has caused extensive damage to ships, docks, and in this instance, the relieving platform against the seawall and underneath Alaskan Way. The damage found in several places means that the seawall's vulnerability to an earthquake, already a concern, is even greater than people realized.

"This new evidence should end any doubt about the need and urgency to replace the seawall and the Viaduct," the mayor said. "We learned from the Nisqually earthquake that the Viaduct and seawall are extremely vulnerable to a seismic event, and now we have evidence of structural damage to the seawall. This is a clear threat to public safety, our region transportation network and a critical element or our economic infrastructure. We must get started on a plan to rebuild this corridor."

Construction of the 7,000-floot-long seawall that separates Puget Sound from the waterfront area was completed 67 years ago.

Sections of the buried portions of the seawall were examined over the last two weeks by digging six test pits along Alaskan Way and inspecting the wood timbers the comprise the relieving platform. The test pits were excavated along Alaskan Way at University, Lenora, Vine, Broad, Seneca, and Union Streets.