PORT TOWNSEND — Two roundabout projects originally slated for this spring on state Highway 104 in Jefferson County have been moved to 2024 due to environmental permitting delays, according to Mark Krulish, state Department of Transportation spokesman.
The two proposed roundabouts — one at 104’s intersection with Shine Road/Paradise Bay Road and the other to the west at state Highway 19 — were part of a long list of road and bridge projects that the state Department of Transportation has planned for the next two years in Clallam and Jefferson counties.
So far, the only one underway is the $12.8 million project to replace three culverts with a bridge and two box culverts near Leland Valley Cut-Off Road about 5 miles north of Quilcene.
The State Environmental Policy Act comment deadline for the Highway 104/Highway 19 roundabout was March 17, with the project slated to start in late spring.
However, Krulish wrote that, due to environmental permitting delays, that project and one at Shine Road/Paradise Bay Road are now scheduled to be built in 2024.
“We do not yet have a new date for these projects to be put out for advertisement, but that will likely be this fall,” Krulish said in a Thursday email.
The 2023 construction projects planned in the Clallam and Jefferson counties are the following:
• Fish barrier removal on U.S. Highway 101 at May Creek in the vicinity of Dowans Creek Road during 2023-2025.
• Emergency repairs on state Highway 112 at the Pysht River during summer 2023.
• Fish barrier removal at Indian Creek on Highway 101, which began in February 2022 and is expected to be complete in April 2023.
• Elwha River Bridge replacement on Highway 101, set for late 2023 to late 2025.
• Fish barrier removal at Leland Creek and unnamed tributaries on Highway 101, which started in February and is expected to last until late winter 2024.
• Fish barrier removal at six locations along U.S. Highway 101 from Johnson Creek to Contractors Creek, set for 2023 to 2025.
• Roundabout at state Highway 20 and Kearney Street, set for summer 2023.
• Fish barrier removal at state Highway 19 and state Highway 104 set for 2023 to 2025.
• Center lock rehabilitation on the Hood Canal Bridge, planned for spring 2023 until fall 2023.
• Roundabout at state Highway 104 and state Highway 19, set for spring 2024 to early winter 2024.
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Reporter Brian Gawley can be reached at Brian.Gawley@soundpublishing.com.
