PORT ANGELES — City Council members will try getting the state Department of Transportation and Lower Elwha Klallam tribe to resume negotiations over construction at the abandoned graving yard site.
But an aide for U.S. Rep. Norm Dicks, D-Bremerton, said at Monday’s special council meeting called to discuss the project’s future that talks between the two sides is not an option.
The meeting was called to discuss possible ways that the 22.4-acre graving yard project to build Hood Canal Bridge components on the Port Angeles waterfront might be restarted.
Transportation Secretary Doug MacDonald and Gov. Gary Locke announced Dec. 21 that the state was abandoning the project after 17 months and an estimated $58.8 million spent.
The agency cited a Dec. 10 letter from the tribe asking that digging at the site — both construction and archaeological — be halted immediately because of the growing findings of more Klallam remains and artifacts from the former village of Tse-whit-zen.
Turnout at Monday’s meeting, which lasted 2½ hours and was broadcast live on radio KONP, filled the City Council chambers to standing room only.
But noticeably absent were representatives of the two major players in the Port Angeles graving yard project: the Lower Elwha Klallam tribe, which requested the pullout, and the state Department of Transportation, which quit the project Dec. 21.
Tense moments
The roundtable discussion among more than a dozen public officials was punctuated by several interruptions from audience members and some tense exchanges.
City Councilwoman Karen Rogers said a “small hope” remained to keep the graving yard project in Port Angeles but it would take the whole community, including the tribe, for that to happen.
“Why did they have to go to that extreme to shut down the project? We have yet to have a conversation,” Rogers said.
“What drove them to that point? We must address their issues.”
Councilman Jack Pittis, the former city public works director, said from an engineering perspective, he estimated the graving yard project to be about half-completed.
Pittis said about 25 percent of the cement floor is poured for the concrete “bathtub” in which bridge components would be built, and 50 percent of the large steel sheets that would comprise the walls are installed.
The project’s stormwater system is installed, and city officials were told pontoons could be poured in a couple months — although there must be a way to get them out to the water, Pittis said.
“If you look at the money that’s been spent there, it’s hard to see it go to waste,” he said.