PORT ANGELES — Lower Elwha Klallam tribal officials will meet Wednesday with local legislators — and perhaps Gov. Christine Gregoire — over the failed Hood Canal Bridge graving yard on the Port Angeles waterfront.
Although Gregoire has promised to approach legislators for a task force to probe the project’s $59 million collapse, she also has pledged not to try to revive construction without support from the tribe.
That leaves at issue whom to blame for the shutdown — and where to build the concrete anchors, pontoons, and highway decks to replace the east end of the bridge that is an economic artery to the North Olympic Peninsula.
Lower Elwha Tribal Chairwoman Frances Charles said Sunday she will meet at 4 p.m. and at 6 p.m. Wednesday with 24th District Reps. Lynn Kessler, D-Hoquiam, and Jim Buck, R-Joyce, and with state Sen. Jim Hargrove, D-Hoquiam.
Their legislative territory include the former graving yard just east of the Nippon Paper Industries USA mill.
DOT negotiator
Charles also said they hope to meet with Gregoire and to talk with Tim Thompson, the Tacoma negotiator named by the state Department of Transportation, or DOT, to try to tie off the frayed ends of the issue.
She said a detailed agenda will emerge from a conference call with Thompson this morning.
Despite a chorus of complaint from Port Angeles politicians and business leaders, construction was shut down at the site, where workers discovered a 2,700-year-old Native American village called Tse-whit-zen after construction of the graving yard started in August 2003.
