PORT ANGELES — Work crews have completed paving and striping of U.S. Highway 101 over Indian Creek, according to the state Department of Transportation.
The project, which started in March 2022, replaced the culvert under the roadway with a 180-foot concrete girder bridge, opening 11 miles of habitat for salmon, bull trout and steelhead, DOT said in a press release.
The project is part of the state’s fish passage improvement program mandated by a 2013 injunction issued by the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington in a long-running suit brought by the Western Washington Treaty Tribes.
DOT faces a 2030 deadline to restore 90 percent of blocked fish habitat west of the Cascades.
DOT said that, since 2013, it has corrected culverts at 100 sites subject to the injunction, opening 474 miles of previously blocked salmon and steelhead habitat.
