OLYMPIA –Transportation Secretary Doug MacDonald told the state’s top transportation panel Wednesday that restarting the graving yard project in Port Angeles without the Lower Elwha Klallam tribe’s agreement is impossible.
The group pushing to reinstate the graving yard project on Marine Drive includes two City Council members, civic organizations and labor unions, MacDonald told the Transportation Commission during its meeting at the state capital Wednesday.
But their momentum is insufficient to restart the project, so that energy must be transformed to other areas, he said.
MacDonald said if commissioners were to survey the Port Angeles community, there is “substantial sentiment” in favor of stopping the project.
The abandonment decision takes both the project’s short-term and long-term economic benefits off the table, so there are lots of regrets, he said.
Tse-whit-zen village extends farther than the 22.4-acre site that the Department of Transportation owns, MacDonald said.
So there’s a question of future development all along the waterfront, he said.
“How much of that area is archaeo-active?” MacDonald asked, adding that it is Port Angeles’ problem, not Transportation’s.
“They have a lot of work to do,” he said.
Legislative hearings?
MacDonald said the Legislature is sympathetic to the situation, but it is too early to say whether there will be a legislative investigation.
Rep. Jim Buck, R-Joyce, said later Wednesday that House Transportation Committee Chairman Ed Murray, D-Seattle, favors holding hearings on why the project was stopped after $58.8 million was spent.
But Sen. Mary Margaret Haugen, D-Camano Island, the Senate Transportation Committee chairwoman, said in a separate interview that she didn’t think legislative hearings were necessary.
