LITTLE BOSTON — Carefully, methodically, the old Point Julia landmark continued its disappearing act, its presence slowly erased piling by piling.

A forklift operator extracted each pile with the precision of a dentist extracting a tooth: nudging it loose, then pulling it up and out. By 10 a.m. Sept. 15, five of 42 pilings lay on the beach.

The pier and its creosoted pilings are being removed as part of the Port Gamble S’Klallam Tribe’s larger effort to help clean up the bay. The pier is being removed by Nisqually Marine Services, a division of the Nisqually Tribe’s Department of Natural Resources.

The pier was built in 1979 to serve the gill net fishery and became a popular recreational amenity — a great place to cast a fishing line, jump into the water, or watch activity on the bay. The pier is being removed “because it is obsolete and structurally unsound,” according to Port Gamble S’Klallam Tribe spokeswoman Ginger Vaughan. “It is not useful for fishers. Its creosote pilings are also an issue to human, habitat, and fish/shellfish health.”

The Tribe’s Debris Removal Project is funded by the state Department of Ecology and managed by the Tribe’s Natural Resources Department. It is separate from the cleanup of the old Pope & Talbot mill site, which is being managed by the Department of Ecology.

Phase 1 of Port Gamble S’Klallam’s project has been to remove debris, including old nets and boats, from the shoreline on the reservation. This phase is almost complete, Vaughan said.

More than 50 people volunteered to help clean up the shoreline on June 14, and more than 35 volunteered on July 26. The Tribe has also used the project to educate the community about the importance of debris removal to the health and eco-system of Port Gamble Bay.

The other part of the project is removing debris from privately-owned shoreline and tidelands along the bay, outside the reservation boundaries. Members of the Tribe’s Natural Resources Department have reached out to property owners, including visiting door-to-door, to explain the project, how the work will be done, and that debris removal will come as no cost to the owner.

Vaughan said the Tribe has debris-removal permission from about 18 of an estimated 50 land owners along the shoreline.

All work must be completed by June 2015.

Vaughan said that while the Tribe’s project is different than and separate from the larger toxics cleanup of Port Gamble Bay that Ecology is overseeing, the efforts of the two projects represent a holistic approach to the cleanup of the bay.

“Before this agreement, the Tribe was already working on a plan to spearhead an effort to remove debris from around the bay. DOE liked the concept as it fed nicely into their general goals, so they asked to partner with the Tribe,” Vaughan wrote.

“Considering the cultural and ecological value the Tribe puts on Port Gamble Bay, they have spent a lot of time and energy doing what they can to further protection efforts. To this end, they are the most knowledgeable when it comes to debris from around the bay and the resources necessary to clean it up.”

Jon Rose, president of Olympic Property Group, the real estate arm of Pope Resources, said in an earlier story that cleanup of the old mill site should begin by July 2015, pending permits.

According to Rose, all business tenants of the mill site will be gone by May. Removal of pilings and an old dock will come first, followed by intertidal dredging to remove wood waste and other debris. A layer of sand will be placed to contain any waste that could not be removed. Cleanup should be completed by 2017 or 2018, Rose said.

Back at Point Julia, Nisqually Marine Services had placed a boom around the pier to contain any debris that fell into the water. Plastic sheeting had been placed on the beach below the pier to catch any falling debris above the tideline.

A worker chainsawed sections of pier decking, which were then removed by forklift. The forklift operator hauled each section of decking to a nearby pile upland, then returned to nudge and extract each piling that once supported the pier deck.

Dennis Lucia of Nisqually Marine Services said the remains of the pier will go to an approved landfill where, according to one environmental services company, some of the wood and creosote will degrade anaerobically.

Pier removal began Sept. 12. Lucia said he expected his crew of nine would have the pier removed in five days — that’s about Sept. 18. Then, the crew will cut up and remove a barge or landing craft on the beach, and then remove some pilings out near the S’Klallam Tribe hatchery’s fish pens.