SEQUIM — A “new” Towne Road, a pedestrian-only path, or some sort of hybrid in between: the future of the newly constructed lower Dungeness levee has at least four variations.
Clallam County leaders presented those options while fielding a number of questions and concerns at a Sept. 26 meeting in Sequim that drew more than 160 people.
County officials are considering the options for the site of the levee constructed during the Lower Dungeness River Floodplain Restoration after the site became popular with recreationalists, who began using it as a hiking and walking trail.
Public comments are being accepted through Tuesday. Submit comments online at the county’s Dungeness Restoration webpage at clallamcountywa.gov/184/Dungeness-Floodplain-Restoration, by email at loni.gores@ clallamcountywa.gov, or by mail: Board of Clallam County Commissioners, 223 E. Fourth St., Suite 4, Port Angeles, WA 98362.
The alternatives include:
• Construct a two-lane road (10-foot lanes, 4-foot shoulders) to connect existing Towne Road to East Anderson Road.
• Construct a two-lane road and separate 6-foot trail surface; given the limited 32 feet available, the road would include 10-foot-wide lanes with 1-foot shoulders and 2-foot guard rails.
• Construct a one-lane, 16-foot road surface (southbound) and a 12-foot-wide pedestrian trail surface.
• Construct a pedestrian trail surface centered on the levee; this option would require the placement of a single-use driveway access to accommodate an existing landowner.
“An awful lot of people want to see it open for a lot of good reasons. Also, a lot of people want to see the alternatives,” Clallam County commissioner Mark Ozias said.
In response to one person’ concern that the presentation seemed to be encouraging leaving the levee open to just pedestrians, Ozias noted that three of the four options have some sort of road surface.
“There are very good reasons to consider all these alternatives,” he said.
Background
The Lower Dungeness River Floodplain Restoration Project relocated a portion of the levee system along the lower reaches of the Dungeness River. The project reconnected more than 175 acres of the river’s historic floodplain, which project leaders say resulted in reduced flood risk and expanded habitat for salmon and other fish and wildlife species.
Originally, the estimated $14.8 million project was designed to provide for relocation of the northern portion of Towne Road on top of the new levee. “Old” Towne Road would then be removed, and the former location of the road restored as part of the floodplain.
However, county officials noted, scheduling constraints — several properties north of the project area were in danger of flooding, they said — required that the new levee be constructed simultaneously with the removal of the old Towne Road in the summer of 2022.
At the same time, funding for the roadways’ reconstruction dried up after the county found tons of contaminated material under Towne Road, costing about $1 million in grant funding for its removal, according to Cathy Lear, a biologist with the Clallam County Department of Community Development’s Natural Resources department.
“That’s the unfortunate reality of government; there’s rarely enough funding to go around,” Ozias said last week.
In the meantime, people began using the newly constructed levee as a walking, hiking and biking path.
“It was a pleasant experience for walking and wildlife viewing,” said Bruce Emery, director of Clallam County’s Department of Community Development.
Some levee users signed a petition to leave the pathway as it is rather than construct the “new” Towne Road, while other petitions were circulated encouraging the county to complete the construction of the roadway.
With growing interest in keeping it as a pathway and uncertainty over funding, Emery said county commissioners “tapped the brakes” and instead started looking at other options.
Meeting organizers said county commissioners have already received more than 135 written comments about the project, with varying opinions about what should be done.
County officials at the Sept. 26 meeting didn’t provide cost estimates for the alternatives, but Joe Donisi, an engineer with the Clallam County Road Department, said alternatives one and two — which provide two-lane, paved traffic — would have similar costs and could take a couple of years to fund, while options three and four (limited and no roadway design) are lowest in cost.
Option three, Donisi said, is somewhat unusual in that it provides one-way traffic, something not seen on any other county roadway.
“It took time for me to warm to it,” Donisi said, but that option is something the community should consider.
If the public desires an option that takes more funding, he said, the county staff will take the proposal to the commissioners, who would then start looking for funding sources.
Preferences
Derrick Eberle, whose resident road bisects the levee segment in question, works the land his family has farmed for more than a century.
He said that, after the floodplain restoration project was completed, he noticed how much people were using the levee.
“It seemed to work well for everyone; they can cycle and jog, do whatever they want to,” Eberle said in a phone interview.
Eberle, who attended last week’s meeting, said out of the four options, he would prefer the county use the fourth option, to keep it as a trail. That way, it could connect well-used levee segments near the Old Dungeness Schoolhouse and one near the Dungeness Creamery to the south.
“When you look at the options, one group [would] occasionally use this road versus, everyone every day [could] use this to walk around,” he said.
In addition, less vehicle traffic in the area should be better for wildlife in addition to less environmental impact for an area that project leaders spent so much time and funding to restore, Eberle said.
He said if Towne Road was not restored as a roadway, it wouldn’t impact his farm, as the family has access they need for farm machinery.
“It seems like it’s been working great this past year,” Eberle said.
Jamestown resident Jeff Tozzer wrote to county commissioners, urging them to complete the Towne Road roadway.
“The commissioners’ messaging has consistently been that this vital link would reopen upon completion of the levee realignment,” Tozzer wrote. “Some locals want to keep this as a vehicle-free footpath, but that option is not without environmental impacts. Dog owners are treating this as a 2-mile off-leash dog park.
“The levee is littered with dog feces (some bagged in plastic and abandoned) and some owners allow their dogs to leave the trail to enter the restored floodplain, which disrupts the salmon and wildlife habitat,” he continued.
“If Towne Road were to reopen, much of the walking trail would remain vehicle-free … that’s at least 1.7 miles of beautiful, natural paths along the river without cars.”
He urged commissioners to consider the impact of closing off such a roadway would have for local emergency vehicles — a sentiment echoed at the Sept. 26 meeting.
“We are very interested in getting the input of first responders, construction companies and residents,” Ozias said. “They are not all in alignment with one another, [but] we will take all of that into consideration.”
For more about the project, see clallamcountywa.gov/184/Dungeness-Floodplain-Restoration.
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Michael Dashiell is the editor of the Sequim Gazette of the Olympic Peninsula News Group, which also is composed of other Sound Publishing newspapers Peninsula Daily News and Forks Forum. Reach him at editor@sequimgazette.com.
