Berkeley’s aged municipal pier, closed this week because of structural deterioration, probably doesn’t have any problems that money can’t fix.

But such a fix probably would take a lot of money, in an era when governments don’t have enough to go around — and even when they do, various regulatory agencies are likely to be keeping close, time-consuming watch.

“Anything in a salt water environment, unless it’s solid rock, requires maintenance,” said Brad Porter, a maritime engineer with Moffatt & Nichol. “Once you get to a certain point, it gets really costly to fix things up right.”

Porter’s comment came two days after the city of Berkeley fenced off the long finger of concrete that generations of fishers and strollers have used to travel as much as a half-mile out above the waters of the bay. The structure had been closed to motorized vehicles earlier in the month after an inspection revealed that sections of the pier’s underside had lost their coat of concrete, exposing rusted steel rebar.

The pier is an unofficial landmark dating back to the late 1920s, when it extended 3.5 miles into the bay and was used by cars that drove onto a ferry bound for San Francisco. That function ended soon after the Bay Bridge opened in 1936.

The 3,000 feet that extend from Berkeley’s marina was the only part that remained accessible. The westernmost section was rebuilt in the 1980s. The stretch closest to land was rebuilt in the 1950s, and that’s where the corroded conditions can be seen from below.

“We need to do a more in-depth analysis” before offering an estimate as to the extent and cost of the needed repairs, Berkeley spokesman Matthai Chakko said Friday.

‘Fatal flaw’

More for you News Structural damage closes historic Berkeley pier

The portion of the pier closest to the shore includes long, steel-reinforced concrete slabs that rest upon concrete piles. When Porter looked at a photo from the online Berkeley Daily Planet showing the extent of the decay — long bands of rusty rebar that look like orange embers amid rough exposed concrete — he suggested that the remedy wouldn’t simply be a matter of applying patches here and there.

“The bottom part of the slab, when the steel starts to go, that’s serious,” said Porter, whose firm has worked on several pier restoration projects for the Port of San Francisco. “If you’ve lost the steel and lower concrete, that’s a fatal flaw.”

Porter stressed that neither he nor Moffatt & Nichol has inspected the Berkeley pier. But the firm has done such an inspection of San Francisco’s Municipal Pier at Aquatic Park. Much of that structure was closed off several years ago because it is falling apart. Park officials want to save it, but the estimated repair cost has grown from $40 million in 2008 to at least $70 million today.

Even if the cost in Berkeley was one-tenth that, finding the money to rejuvenate the pier would require taking money from the city’s other park-related projects already in line.

Last year, when Berkeley identified $25 million in needs over five years “to address the city’s most essential parks maintenance and repair needs,” the only reference to the pier was the desire for improved access for disabled users. Within the waterfront as a whole, the repair of docks was mentioned as a priority, not the pier itself.

Since then, Berkeley voters have approved a measure to tax themselves as way to increase funding for park operations and upkeep. It increases funding for maintenance by $1.2 million annually. However, the overall backlog for maintenance is a daunting $78 million.

Permit challenges

Assuming that the city did move a rebuilt pier to the front of the list — pitting it against such popular spots as the Berkeley Rose Garden, where a trellis and pathway designed by legendary architect Bernard Maybeck has been closed for more than a year because of structural decay — there’d also be the challenge of lining up permits from the various regulatory agencies that have a say over public waters.

Replacing piles or renovating portions of a pier can require approvals from a list that includes the Bay Conservation and Development Commission; the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers; the Regional Water Quality Control Board; the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Marine Fisheries Service.

Bill Bruin, a marine engineer for the structural engineering firm Simpson Gumpertz & Heger Inc., said simple maintenance is a huge hassle because of the bureaucracy and the number of agencies that pier operators have to deal with.

“My personal feeling is that some of the environmental rules and processes get in the way of straight maintenance of piers,” Bruin said. “I think regulation is important, but sometimes we have a one-size-fits-all attitude, and that’s not right. Somebody who just wants to replace a pile is regulated as if he was the Warriors who want to put an entire arena on a pier in San Francisco.”

But securing a green light for pier repairs needn’t be controversial or cumbersome, said Brad McCrea, regulatory program director for BCDC.

“The Berkeley pier is a beloved fixture on the bay,” McCrea said. “We support structures that provide a closeness to the water, that offer a different sort of connection and foster stewardship from members of the public.”

McCrea said any project would face scrutiny to make sure it didn’t increase the amount of bay fill, and that the construction didn’t have negative environmental side-effects. Overall, he estimated that approvals for straight-forward repairs might take six months to a year to complete.

“We’re all watching out for the bay, but from different perspectives,” McCrea said of the bureaucratic layers. At the same time, “If the improvements are modest, the approval process gets shorter. ... We’re not talking the Bay Bridge here.”