Other North Olympic Peninsula government agencies are feeling repercussions from the state Department of Transportation’s $87 million mistake in Port Angeles.
So say Port of Port Townsend and Jefferson County Public Utility District officials, who are now having to hire archaeologists to test-drill project sites for traces of Native American remains and artifacts.
Meanwhile, a state Department of Archaeology and Historic Preservation official said Thursday that the Port Angeles graving yard oversight has indeed “heightened” awareness, with more emphasis placed on federal Native American cultural resources guidelines in place since 1961.
Just two weeks into the Hood Canal Bridge graving yard project at Port Angeles Harbor in late 2004, contractor Kiewit General Construction Co. of Poulsbo uncovered what led to the discovery of the ancient village of Tse-whit-zen.
Found at the site near the base of Ediz Hook were 337 intact Klallam burials on the waterfront site.
Nothing built
The state spent nearly $87 million in Port Angeles without building the huge, concrete-lined dry dock, let alone a single bridge pontoon or anchor for the east-half Hood Canal Bridge replacement project.
That price does not factor in the project relocation costs, which many believe will push the loss well above $100 million.
Components are now being built in private shipyards on Puget Sound, and the bridge project, originally expected to be done by now, is likely to be finished in 2010, according to Transportation officials.
Lower Elwha S’Klallam tribal members uncovered their ancestors at the site in an archaeological project that took more than a year.
“Because of the issues that were raised in Port Angeles, agencies like the [Federal Aviation Administration] are not taking any chances,” Port of Port Townsend Deputy Director Jim Pivarnik told Port commissioners this week — referring to the graving yard project as “the Port Angeles fiasco.”
$10,000 contract
The Port commissioners approved a $10,000 contract for Equinox Research and Consulting International Inc. to conduct a “cultural resource management plan” for certification, satisfying an Federal Aviation Administration requirement for projects it funds.
The FAA would fund 90 percent of the $10,000 Equinox contract, Pivarnik said.
The Port plans several improvements at Jefferson County International Airport that are largely FAA grant-funded.
The Army Corps of Engineers, which is overseeing airport groundwork engineering, also requires the archaeological testing.
Jim Parker, Jefferson County Public Utility District general manager, said although the PUD’s Marrowstone Island water system project is not federally funded, the Corps of Engineers was requiring cultural resource management plan work before any water lines go in.
The requirement for a “joint aquatic resource permits application” is another reason for the cultural resource management plan, which Parker said may have to be conducted over the entire island.
