Pile Driving at Port Townsend Ferry Terminal

The Port Townsend - Keystone (Whidbey Island) Ferry landing is going through some significant upgrades that involve new pilings.
  

Pile driving crane positioning new pile

New pile in position.

Driving the pile with vibratory pile driver

Washington State Department of Transportation Ferry system requires lots of pile work and the DOT has taken the potential negative impacts seriously. Hammering the piles into the sediment is easier than the vibratory method, but it is much louder. But the concern is not disturbing the peace. Hammer pile driving has been demonstrated to harm fish pile-driving-noise-changes. The sound levels were being monitored by a group of University of Washington students. As the vibratory pile driving was encountering some difficulties with some of the pile locations, the monitoring may get a good set of comparitive data as some piles will likley require the hammering method.

Hydrophone monitoring electronics and read out