PORT ANGELES — Lower Elwha Klallam tribal leaders said Thursday that they have asked the state Department of Transportation to temporarily shut down all graving yard construction affecting burials on the site.
Hundreds of burials, believed to be centuries old, have been unearthed on the 22.5-acre waterfront property just east of the Nippon Paper Industries USA mill, where Transportation is trying to build an onshore dry dock for new Hood Canal Bridge components.
“We are fully aware that the Lower Elwha Klallam tribe could, if it wished, invoke its legal remedies to bring the entire Hood Canal (Bridge) project to a halt,” Lower Elwha Klallam Tribal Chairwoman Frances G. Charles said in a statement late Thursday afternoon.
“But such confrontation is not our first choice.”
Charles told Peninsula Daily News the 1990 Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act gives the tribe the right to protect burials from adverse effects, which she said continued construction work will cause.
Construction to ‘continue’
Transportation’s Olympic Region Communication Manager Lloyd D. Brown said the state will continue to address tribal members’ concerns, but said construction at the site will continue as planned.
“At this point we are working toward the construction of the graving dock and the recovery of archaeological items and the recovery of burials,” Brown said.
“We are going to continue to do both and consult with the tribe and all of the agencies involved during this process.”
He said construction at the graving yard will continue alongside the archaeological dig.
