Key findings: FOTH & VAN DYKE’s report makes these observations on the Port Angeles graving yard, among others:
* The state Transportation Department did little analysis on alternatives to the Port Angeles site to build the graving yard.
* Examination of the site focused almost wholly on environmental concerns, mostly about salmon.
* Transportation gave inadequate and inaccurate information on the site to its consulting archaeologist.
* The archaeologist did little “deep site” testing, although Transportation recommended it do so.
* The archaeologist seemed not to understand the geology of the site’s near-shore location.
* The state Office of Archaeology and Historic Preservation was not briefed until the consultant’s report was done.
* The Lower Elwha Klallam tribe was alerted to the archaeological analysis by a form letter and only on the day the consultant was selected. Face-to-face meetings began only after the first human fragment was found.
Key recommendations
RECOMMENDATIONS IN THE report include:
* Transportation should adopt financial reporting methods that make it easy to compare budgets to expenditures.
* Transportation project managers should have leadership, management and responsibility training.
* Transportation should employ internal experts, such as archaeologists.
* Transportation’s cultural resource specialists should be trained by an institution such as the federal Advisory Council on Historic Preservation.
* Those experts should review construction projects before the work is completely designed.
* Sites should be evaluated for the effects of soil compacting, vibration, de-watering and shearing that may occur during construction.
* Transportation should plan for future coastal projects years in advance of need.
* Transportation should involve local and tribal officials at all stages.
* Transportation should study tribal constitutions to learn how tribes reach decisions.
Where the money went
THE FOTH & VAN DYKE report draws these conclusions about monetary loses stemming from and following the graving yard project cancellation:
* Losses at the graving yard total $86,876,630.
They include $60.5 million worth of construction, $11.2 million to reassign equipment, supplies and workers, and $15.2 million to assess and select a new graving yard.
* Cost of the Port Angeles graving yard originally was set at $50.8 million but climbed by $10 million, mostly through $3.4 million of mitigation paid to the Lower Elwha Klallam and $5.4 million for archaeological services.
* Construction of pontoons at Concrete Technologies in Tacoma and other sites first was estimated at $106.9 million but climbed to $220.5 million.
Reasons include increased costs of labor and materials, working at a site one-fifth the size of the Port Angeles yard, building pontoons in four cycles in Tacoma rather than one or two in Port Angeles, and outfitting the pontoons in Seattle.
* The Hood Canal Bridge retrofit, budgeted at $275.8 million in 2003, climbed to $454.2 million in May 2005 and to $470.1 million in March 2006, the last increase due to contract renegotiations and engineering changes.
* New material worth $1.5 million remains at the Port Angeles site, plus $500,000 in salvageable material.
It may not be cleared for an additional 12 months.
