PORT ANGELES — Clallam County road crews could plow the upper 12 miles of the Olympic National Park road to Hurricane Ridge for about $1,000 per day, a county analysis shows.
Doing so would help the park keep the winter recreation area south of Port Angeles open seven days a week.
But citing the liability of paying an outside agency to plow an area that gets hurricane-force winds and 30 to 35 feet of snow per year, park officials Monday said thanks but no thanks.
“There is one huge issue, and that’s the safety liability,” Todd Suess, Olympic National Park deputy superintendent, told county commissioners.
“The park is not willing to put that onto some other staff. . . . It’s very risky and a huge liability.
“I’m not saying this is a non-starter, but that’s a very large thing for us.”
Public queries
In response to public queries about what the county could do to help the park keep the road open daily in the winter instead of three days a week, County Administrator Jim Jones asked County Engineer Ross Tyler to estimate what it would cost the county to plow the road from Monday through Thursday.
“We feel very comfortable that we could clear that road every day,” Jones said.
Business and economic leaders in Port Angeles and across the North Olympic Peninsula are campaigning to get Hurricane Ridge — with its ski lifts and snowplay areas — open every day through the winter as a tourism stimulant.
Tyler’s analysis showed that it would cost about $90,000 to plow the road for 90 days. Two county trucks would plow and sand to the mile-high top and back to Port Angeles once a day.
‘Excess capacity’
“We do often have what I would call excess capacity,” Tyler said.
“In the wintertime, there’s not a lot of other stuff we can do. We basically wait for storms and do storm cleanup and that type of stuff.”
The National Park Service has estimated that it would cost the government more than $250,000 for daily snow plowing.
Earlier, a delegation of city residents, including Port Angeles City Council member Cherie Kidd, successfully lobbied for the $250,000 in a visit to Washington, D.C.
An additional $75,000 needs to be raised from local sources by Aug. 15 to supplement the $250,000 to keep Hurricane Ridge Road open daily in the winter for the next three years.
If that $75,000 is not raised by Aug. 15, the $250,000 in federal funds will no longer be available, National Park Services officials have said.
The query about whether Clallam County road crews could do the plowing — and for how much money — was considered an alternative to the Park Service formula.
Peninsula campaigners
Among those driving the effort to raise the $75,000 allotment include Port Angeles City Council member Don Perry, Port Angeles Regional Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Russ Veenema, Port Angeles City Manager Kent Myers and Port Angeles real estate appraiser Greg Halberg.
“There is a lot of interest and a lot of groups that have said they’re going to commit,” Veenema said Monday.
“It’s probably all going to come in toward the end.”
The cost-sharing experiment would determine if Port Angeles restaurants, hotels and other businesses that lag during winter would see more traffic with an open road to the 5,242-foot-high Ridge.
Second crew
If the county plowed the road during the workweek, it would spare Olympic National Park from needing to hire a second crew to plow the upper 12 miles of the road.
A second snow crew would cost the park $116,400 for 66 days, or $1,764 per day.
“The liability issue for some reason is a hang-up for them,” County Engineer Tyler said.
“I don’t really understand that very well because we already share the maintenance on the lower five miles from Mount Angeles Road up to Lake Dawn Road.
“We already plow that four days out of the week, and they take it Friday, Saturday and Sunday.”
The entire stretch of the road is open about 80 percent of the winter, but only on Fridays, Saturday and Sundays.
Avalanche dangers and other inclement weather keeps the road closed for the other 20 percent of the time.
“The goal is seven days a week, but more than likely 20 percent of those seven days a week are going to be closed due to weather,” Suess said.
“There’s times when the road just can’t be physically opened.”
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Reporter Rob Ollikainen can be reached at 360-417-3537 or at rob.ollikainen@peninsuladailynews.com.
