Council Buys Time in Search for Better Boardwalk Material
Ocean City will consider options for more durable Boardwalk decking.
Photos
City Council on Thursday rejected 13 bids for a contract to replace a block of the Ocean City Boardwalk.
The bids were for the $1 million first phase (between Fifth and Sixth streets) of a nine-year project to replace the substructure and decking of the Boardwalk between Fifth and 12th streets.
Frustrated by the quality of southern yellow pine that splinters and cracks, the city administration wants to consider different materials before readvertising for new bids. The city will study new wood products that include synthetic agents for increased strength and durability.
But in public comment at Thursday's meeting, Johnson's Popcorn owner John Stauffer asked City Council to consider green heart, a hardwood from Guyana that is reportedly environmentally friendly and sustainable.
Stauffer lives near a stretch of Boardwalk that was redecked with Brazilian ipe in 1988, and 24 years later, the city has not had to replace a single board, he said.
While objections from environmentalists led Ocean City to abandon a plan to use more ipe, Stauffer suggested the question of which materials to use could be decided by voters in a referendum.
Wes Kazmarck, president of the Boardwalk Merchants Association, and Wesley Avenue resident Bob Hutchinson also spoke in favor of using hardwoods or anything but pine to redeck the Boardwalk.
Stauffer provided a sample of green heart to council members.
Eleanor
5:51 am on Friday, July 27, 2012
If you don't want to use that awful looking and slippery and unsafe synthetic stuff then you need wood and hardwood is the best choice. Pine is okay for furniture that won't take much of a beating but for a boardwalk it is not practical. We need to decide what is going to be the best surface, the most durable and the less likely to need to be replaced in a few years.
William Sullivan
6:52 am on Friday, July 27, 2012
We went thru this before then canceled bringing legal problems $$ ! Just concrete for overall strength,and cleanup...
Frank B.
8:27 am on Friday, July 27, 2012
Referendum?? Here come the signs.... :)
Edward May
10:07 am on Friday, July 27, 2012
Put it to a public vote and Ipe will win hands down since the politicians are afraid to chose this solution let the voters make the decision for you.
Parker Miller
12:19 pm on Friday, July 27, 2012
The boardwalk landlords and merchants want ipe. Ipe will last longer and look great but also costs $1 million more per block, and there are environmental concerns. Why doesn't the city supply the money that it would cost to redeck the Boardwalk with the standard yellow pine, and the landlords and merchants can supply the addional cost of ipe since they will be the primary beneficaries.
Michael
3:51 pm on Friday, July 27, 2012
Don't worry, this will just be another waste of time. If a property owner had anything as broken and run down as some of our boardwalk, the city would have condemned it by now. This should have been handled years ago. As usual, it will probably leave another mess for the next administration. We should start using what we have already paid for. Much better than letting it rot away or selling it at a loss.
Canwelearnfromexperience
4:18 pm on Friday, July 27, 2012
Welcome back, Know-Nothings. After a year of debate where the actual facts revealed that ipe is, by far, not the most cost-effective decking option - those facts are ignored by the people commenting above. Your claims, positions, proposals have all been exhaustively, publicly parsed and considered. Do we really want to start from scratch, go over the same ground, revive all of the ill will and bad publicity, just to have the facts once again lead us the the conclusion that there are better alternatives to ipe in a mechanical, aesthetic, financial, environmental, and PR context???? Are we that ridiculous, careless, and impractical?
SemperFi
4:54 pm on Friday, July 27, 2012
You speak of facts but dont show any - What is your solution
David Powell
12:07 pm on Monday, July 30, 2012
Hm. With respect to Michael above, the whole city depends on the boardwalk, and a few friends have told me of trips and splinters from hitting the boards after a fall because of bad decking. Also the "merchants and landlords" already pay a lot of taxes,so will be picking up a good share of the cost. Ipe is the best wood to use to have a durable boardwalk, especially with the screw fasteners which don't pop up like some older nails do. People say "You show no facts?" Well, let's look at Ipe. Best, longest lasting, most natural, and the stuff laid down 20 or so years ago still is usable. I have yet to see anything that can match it. That's the facts. Finally, the huge cost benefit of Ipe is that over 20 years it will pay for itself easily as there is less need to replace boards where Pine has to be replaced many times over during that time.
To sum things up, as the wood is already taken by the Brazilians themselves, has worked before, and is the best choice, while the Boardwalk seriously needs some work, the arguments for Ipe are strong, one just has to see the reality of the situation. I have respect to the concern for the earth, but we have to use the best, and if it was so bad for Brazil to take the wood, why would Brazilians be selling it? If Ocean City didn't buy the wood someone else would anyway, and they'd have the use of the wood while we still had a boardwalk that needed repairs.
If I saw anything that was nearly as good... but I don't.
OConSaturday
4:39 pm on Friday, July 27, 2012
Parker - Are the merchants also going to supply the environmental cost (compensate the indigenous people displaced and ruined by unsustainable ipe harvesting, will they compensate for the cost of the effects of deforestation to the global economy....?) I know OC is not an eco-friendly population and that there is likely a high percentage of global warming deniers, but belief is not fact. And, outside of OC the majority of the population of our tourist region, if it reflects that of the overall american public, are eco-friendly and know that global warming is a fact and that deforestatoin contributes to it. City council at the time of the last ipe debacle came to understand that and it was a big reason why they eventually unanimously opposed using ipe.
RhondaVW
11:39 am on Saturday, July 28, 2012
Regarding the new tropical hardwood that Mr. Stauffer is now pushing as sustainable decking, the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species has the Greenheart tree on their threatened / endangered list under the "vulnerable" status.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chlorocardium_rodiei
Furthermore it seems to be a wood not suited for decking as this description from a hardwood dealers website explains:
Suitable Applications
Green Heart is very difficult to work and develops large surface cracks as it dries, limiting most of its use to marine applications. Not recommended in small dimensions or under 2" thickness. Green Heart is an excellent choice for marine piling and shoring.
RhondaVW
3:19 pm on Saturday, July 28, 2012
And this from "Wood Magazine":
"As if controlling greenheart's explosive tendency isn't a scary enough situation, all who work the wood also must avoid getting splinters. That's because greenheart, while nontoxic and nonirritating to the touch, somehow causes severe infection when splinters of it penetrate the skin."
Surfsup
9:34 am on Saturday, July 28, 2012
Whats wrong with using prestressed concrete decking as an option. We build roads with it. I know it's not as quaint as wood but will last 50 to 75 years, and can be re cycled when it's no longer usable.
RhondaVW
11:27 am on Saturday, July 28, 2012
Surfsup,
Back in '09 engineers from the HC Bridge Company gave a presentation to the city for their hybrid concrete / composite beams which use 1/10th the concrete of a comparable concrete beam and have a 100 year + lifespan.
http://www.hcbridge.com/Ocean_City_Proposal_1109.pdf
Leo Kogan
11:28 am on Monday, July 30, 2012
Here is the solution - Siberian Larch decking, highly sustainable(1 in every 5 trees on
the Planet, has "least concern" rating), it is not as durable as IPE, but it is much harder
and stronger then Pine, pure heartwood of 500 year old trees - cost of the material is very reasonable. www.siberianlarchproducts.com
David Powell
12:08 pm on Monday, July 30, 2012
Well, that's definitely worth a look then.
PE Mac McCoy
3:22 pm on Monday, July 30, 2012
SemperFi - It is clear to me that "Canwelearn...."'s point is that it has all been reviewed and covered publicly ad nauseam. Your response is to demand he present that to you. My response to you is the look it up! What would you have the person do - download a year's worth of research and debate here for you? I suppose you are among the countless online commentors who enjoy writing from the gut, doing no independate research, giving things the littlest of consideration. Well I'll enable you just a tiny bit and tell you that the year long debate revealed that when taken into all relevant contexts (mechanical, aesthetic, financial, etc...) there are several alternatives to ipe that are more cost effective, including but not limited to pine and an assortment of composites and plastics.