PORT ANGELES — The Clallam County commissioners have unanimously adopted the county’s 2024 construction program as part of the budget process.
“If you are familiar with our six-year (transportation improvement program), you are familiar with all these projects because all of these projects come off the funded portion of that. It is required to be done annually before the budget,” said Joe Donisi, assistant county engineer, before commissioners approved it on Tuesday.
The program includes 20 road, bridge, culvert and levee projects totaling $8.8 million, all but one of which will be contracted out.
Topping the list is resurfacing three-quarters of a mile of Black Diamond Road from Wellman Road to Hoare Road. Next is resurfacing three-quarters of a mile of Carlsborg Road Idea Place to Old Olympic Highway.
The third project is Dungeness National Wildlife Refuge access improvements, consisting of two-tenths of a mile along Lotzgesell Road from Voice of America Road to Kitchen-Dick Road.
The fourth project is resurfacing 1.51 miles of Edgewood Drive from Rife Road to Reddick Road.
The next four projects are replacing road culverts to improve fish passage as required by a settlement reached by the state.
“I think we’re doing very well in our county in getting where we need to be on fish passages,” Donisi said in response to a question from Commissioner Randy Johnson regarding where the county is in its requirements relative to replacing culverts that block fish passage.
Donisi said they keep track of where the state is going to be working so they can work in the same area. The public works department has a map that could be presented to the commissioners at a work session, he said.
Johnson said: “Here we are, we’re fixing a bridge or road, but it’s not fixed below, we aren’t helping the fish. So it sounds like you’re being very logical about this, which I appreciate.”
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Reporter Brian Gawley can be reached at brian.gawley@peninsuladailynews.com.
