OLYMPIA — Six experts have begun advising the state Department of Transportation on how to proceed with repairing the Hood Canal Bridge.
The Dec. 21 closure of the Port Angeles graving yard project sparked the Transportation Department’s need to review its contract with Kiewit General Construction Co. of Poulsbo to build concrete anchors, pontoons and bridge decks to replace the crumbling eastern half of the floating bridge, a Transportation official said.
Now the state must find another graving yard site, ask Kiewit to provide one, or contract with another company to find a graving yard and build the replacement components.
Following a request for proposals issued in late December, 18 public and private entities — including the Port of Port Townsend, Port of Port Angeles, city of Port Angeles and Makah tribe — have proposed their sites as replacement locations for the graving yard.
A decision is expected next month.
Transportation started recruiting its panel of experts shortly after the Lower Elwha Klallam tribe asked a halt to construction on the 22.5-acre Port Angeles site after the state had spent nearly $59 million there.
The yard overlies the 2,700-year-old ancestral Klallam village called Tse-whit-zen, where archaeologists found hundreds of burials and thousands of artifacts.
Kiewit General in 2003 was awarded a $204 million contract for the west-half renovation and east-half replacement of the bridge, including construction of the giant dry dock in Port Angeles.
