Terminal night work resumes

Construction crews will conduct night work on the Bainbridge Island ferry terminal starting Jan. 9 and continue until Feb. 22.

The night construction is part of the final phase of trestle replacement on the terminal’s slip two.

The work will match Eagle Harbor’s low tides, providing a safer work zone for welders and limiting disruption to ferry operations, according to Washington State Ferry officials. There will be no pile-driving at night.

Hours of construction will be from 7 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. and 8 p.m. to 6 a.m., seven days a week. Construction crews minimize any noise from sources such as generators and grinding activities and no pile-driving work will be done at night, ferry officials said.

Measures to reduce impacts from nighttime construction include using temporary noise shields, installing backup warning beepers at the lowest noise level possible, using quiet generators and shielding light emissions from residential property.

Trestle replacement work at the terminal has been underway since mid-September. Ongoing work at the terminal includes replacing portions of the timber trestle with a steel-and-concrete structure.

The project also involves replacement of the slip two transfer span and towers, as well as the tie-up slip structure.

Construction of the trestle replacement project is scheduled to continue through April 2006.

For more information on terminal upgrade plans, visit www.wsdot.wa.gov/ferries/projects/bainbridgeterminalMPU/.

Immediate neighbors may call (206) 515-3755, 24 hours a day to express concerns or report any noise complaints.

Clear Path fetes success

During the fourth quarter of 2005, Bainbridge Island-based Clear Path International raised more than $275,000 for landmine accident survivors in Southeast Asia through major grants, special events and grassroots contributions, the organization said this week.

In October, Clear Path’s fifth anniversary benefit dinner at the Columbia Tower Club in Seattle, attended by many of its island supporters, raised nearly $30,000. This included a $5,000 underwriting grant from the Seattle-based law firm Marler Clark, LLC.

In December, the humanitarian mine action group received word from the McKnight Foundation in Minneapolis of $180,000 in grants for Clear Path’s survivor assistance projects in Vietnam and Cambodia during the next two years.

The largest two-year grant from McKnight, for $105,000, will support a joint project of CPI and Cambodian Volunteers for Community Development in Phnom Penh to build a rice mill in Battambang Province, western Cambodia.

The proposed rice mill and adjoining facility in Battambang will accommodate the training of landmine accident survivors and their families in hands-on agricultural and technical vocational skills.

The total budget for the mill, whose production is expected to make the training program self-sustaining within three years, is $327,000.

The other two-year McKnight grant for $75,000 will support Clear Path International’s survivor assistance program in central Vietnam, where the organization provides medical and socioeconomic assistance to hundreds of families in three districts north and south of the former Demilitarized Zone that once split the country in two.

From the Mark D. Johnson Charitable Trust in California, Clear Path received a $50,000 gift, with $30,000 for survivor assistance in all three program countries – Vietnam, Cambodia and the Thai-Burma border area – and $20,000 for a media project to raise awareness of the landmine problem in Southeast Asia.

In addition, Clear Path received a $5,000 grant for its survivor assistance and mine action work from the Olive Higgins Prouty Foundation and $4,000 from John and Hazel Griffith of San Jose. The remainder of the $275,000 came from individual donations.

Since it was founded on Bainbridge Island in 2000, Clear Path has provided assistance to more than 2,300 landmine accident survivors and their families in Southeast Asia, and sent 60 containers with $4 million worth of medical equipment and supplies to dozens of hospitals in 20 countries affected by the presence of landmines.

Cozy winter tales at library

In the lull between Christmas and the New Year, the library offers a time to cozy up to winter tales from around the world.

“A wonderful thing that has happened since introducing this program is the audience has become pretty much half kids and half adults,” said Sharon Snyder, the Bainbridge library’s Young People’s Librarian.

“Adults have shyly asked if they can come hear stories even if they don’t have any kids to bring. They have and continue to be most welcome.”

Guest storytellers including Denise Dumouchel, Elizabeth Erving and Jo Walter will share tales about winter for adults and children at 7 p.m. Dec. 28 at the Bainbridge library.

“I see winter as the time for those richer and longer tales thinking about giving, others and darkness giving way to light,” Snyder said.

The popular quarterly event regularly draws 40 to 50 listeners. Snyder has been told by parents that their children later retell stories they heard to their family. And in the little breaks between storytellers, the kids get to tell jokes of their own.

Stories are geared for kids 5 and up. For more information, call the Bainbridge library at 842-4162.

— Tina Lieu