Duluth's dock wall problem grew more acute this week, when a portion of dock wall gave way and buckled the sidewalk behind the Duluth Entertainment Convention Center.

The seawall behind the DECC is used for docking tall ships, research vessels, the occasional cruise ship, and the Vista Fleet, whose owner, Justin Steinbach, first noticed the damage Monday and immediately went into contingency mode.

Working with the DECC, which oversees about 3,000 feet of dock behind the DECC, Steinbach said the Vista Fleet is moving one of its two passenger boarding areas farther west up the dock, about 100 feet along the adjacent Harbor Drive to where the decaying timber-cribbing dock wall transitions into corrugated steel.

The DECC board of directors also approved $50,000 in improvements to the Vista Fleet's additional boarding area inside the Minnesota Slip, said DECC Executive Director Dan Russell.

"It's not good, but we have a plan," Russell said, describing short-term and long-term fixes for a dock wall that is a patchwork of different eras running from behind the Great Lakes Aquarium east to just beyond the Minnesota Slip - which also is home to the William A. Irvin and a host of charter fishing boats.

"There are four to five different kinds of seawall just in our footprint," Russell said. "Some of the seawall we're having issues with is from the 1880s and was original seawall in the Duluth harbor."

The city and the DECC already have had the long-term seawall renovation engineered by a Twin Ports firm, AMI Consulting Engineers in Superior. It will cost about $10 million, Russell said, to both renovate the seawall and build a more prominent promenade behind the DECC.

However, the project is not included in current state bonding requests under consideration this legislative session. While the city pushes for about $20 million to update its steam plant, a funding request for a new dock wall is ticketed for a future round of bonding.

"Hopefully, we'll be on top of the list," Russell said.

In the meantime, the Vista Star is being relocated in what is being considered a multi-year, but temporary solution.

"We personally funded the welding and work to get fenders installed in the new location," Steinbach said. "The DECC is working on getting power and water down to it. It's a viable location."

Russell said the city is going to put a chain link fence around the latest portion of dock wall that is likely to be condemned by the city. A harborside pavilion that once belonged to Vista Fleet was previously condemned after the area surrounding it began to heave and collapse in places.

"The concrete is just sitting on wooden timbers and is starting to crack and crumble and become a very unsafe situation," Steinbach said, describing distressed areas that will be cordoned off by the city.

The dock wall deterioration comes at a time when about $3 million of work that began in March on the Minnesota Slip Bridge is wrapping up. The blue pedestrian bridge was scheduled to be raised for the first time since then by late Friday, allowing the charter fishing boats docked in the slip to start their seasons, Russell said.

The raising of the slip bridge also will allow work on the Vista Fleet's under-construction slip platform to continue. Barge access is needed on the new passenger loading platform, which features new pilings.

"That area will be incredibly safe when it's done," Steinbach said.

Because of the work on the slip bridge, the Vista Star had been forced to dock outside of the safe harbor provided by the slip. Northeasterly winds that swelled and stirred the water in Superior Bay contributed to the current situation, Steinbach explained.

"We had to stay out there as rough water rocked the boat," Steinbach said. "The concrete the boat was tied to started to heave and crack."

The Vista Star has since been spending choppy nights in the marina at Pier B Resort. The Vista Fleet's other vessel, the Vista Queen, has yet to be taken out of dry dock.

"As soon as the Minnesota Slip Bridge is able to go up a lot of problems will be solved," Steinbach said. "We'll have alternate docking and be in a great position for the next two or three years."

Russell said the DECC has received a lot of cooperation on its efforts to generate momentum to fix the seawall. Future plans by the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency to cap decades-old pollutants in the Minnesota Slip won't proceed until the dockwall is fixed first, Russell said.

"There are a lot of people rooting for us on this - the city, the MPCA, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the Minnesota (Department of Natural Resources)," Russell said. "There are so many visiting ships and boats that tie up there, it's invaluable."