SHINE — The “pit-to-pier” project isn’t dead, its manager said, despite a conservation agreement in the works between the state and the Navy that would prohibit new construction along areas of Hood Canal.
“We’re going to be going forward,” said Dan Baskins, project manager for the Thorndyke Resources Project, before referring inquiries to the company’s spokesman.
The Navy is working with the state Department of Natural Resources, or DNR, to secure a department-owned strip of subtidal lands stretching from the Hood Canal Bridge south to just below the border between Jefferson and Mason counties.
The agreement, expected to be approved by the Navy by this fall, would prevent new nearshore commercial and industrial construction along the areas of Hood Canal and neighboring waterways that the DNR manages and in which the Navy operates.
Some have heralded the pending agreement as signaling the end of the Thorndyke Resource Project, nicknamed “pit-to-pier,” a proposal that would move gravel from an extraction area near the former Fred Hill Materials Shine pit along a 4-mile-long conveyor belt to a 1,000-foot pier at Hood Canal where it would be loaded on barges for shipping.
Thorndyke has no permit.
It is in the process of an environmental impact study review.
Joan Crooks, executive director of Washington Environmental Council, said the agreement between DNR and the Navy would mark “the end of a decade-long battle over a proposed gravel mine and 1,000-foot pier in Hood Canal.”
But a long-standing opponent of the project, John Fabian of the Hood Canal Coalition, said he thinks the company will take action to keep the project alive.
“I don’t think the fight is over,” said Fabian, who co-founded the coalition in 2002, “but I think the odds of their being successful have been diminished extensively.
“I think they would have a very difficult hill to climb under the circumstances of this easement.”
The news was apparently enough to prompt a small celebration.
“We had a few glasses of Champagne last night,” Fabian said Friday, adding that he would rather the company fought the federal government and the state than the coalition.
His group — which has said the project would hurt the environment, destroy habitat and endanger safety at the Hood Canal Bridge — has opposed the project for 11 years last month, Fabian said.
“I feel like it’s time for someone else to do battle,” he said.
A Thorndyke spokesman said Friday that the company will take action but could not give more details.
“After reading the announcement, we have a pretty good idea of what’s going on, and we’re clearly moving forward,” said Doug Weese of Thorndyke.
Thorndyke has a vested application with Jefferson County, having applied in 2003.
Concrete-supplier Fred Hill Materials, which shut down in April 2012, had served as a representative for project proponents but was always a separate entity and was never the project applicant, Weese has said.
DNR Public Lands Commissioner Peter Goldmark said in a statement that the partnership between the state and Navy “will also provide new protections for sensitive marine ecosystems, safeguard public access and support the jobs that depend on the Navy’s continued presence in the region.”
Matthew Randazzo, special assistant to the commissioner of public lands, said DNR staff and Navy personnel are still drafting the agreement’s language and could not say how many acres of DNR-managed land below the water line would be included.
Randazzo also could not say how long a finalized agreement might take to develop.
“We’re looking to complete the process as quickly as is appropriate, but we don’t have a timeline formalized,” Randazzo said.
The easement will not permit new construction by the Navy, according to the DNR, nor will it affect public access, privately owned lands, recreational uses, aquaculture or geoduck harvesting.
“[The agreement] will enhance environmental conservation along a portion of the Hood Canal and prevent encroachment into Navy operating ranges that are so vital to our mission and our national security,” said Capt. Peter M. Dawson, commanding officer of Naval Base Kitsap.
Liane Nakahara, Navy region Northwest public affairs specialist, said the agreement has to be approved by the assistant secretary of the Navy for energy, installations and environment.
Nakahara said she believed the Navy had expressed some concerns with the Thorndyke proposal during an earlier scoping period several years ago, “but we haven’t been formally involved in the process for the project itself.”
Naval Base Kitsap, just north of Silverdale on the Kitsap Peninsula, employs about 30,000 military personnel, civilians and private contractors, Nakahara said.
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Reporter Jeremy Schwartz can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5074, or at jschwartz@peninsuladailynews.com.
Managing Editor/News Leah Leach can be reached at 360-417-3531 or at leah.leach@peninsuladailynews.com.