A $388 billion spending bill approved by Congress on Saturday includes millions for projects on the North Olympic Peninsula.
The legislation brings funding for the Northwest Maritime Center in Port Townsend, the Elwha River restoration project, research on Hood Canal water oxygen, and transportation programs in Port Angeles.
Among the appropriations, listed Saturday by the office of Rep. Norm Dicks:
* $638,000 for the Northwest Maritime Center at the foot of Water Street in Port Townsend.
U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, D-Shoreline, announced in September funds earmarked for the center, which is designed to enhance the working waterfront of Port Townsend.
The $10.5 million center is slated for completion in 2006.
* $1 million for the Port Angeles International Gateway Transportation Center, to be built at Front and Lincoln streets in downtown Port Angeles, according to Dicks’ office.
Port Angeles City Councilwoman Karen Rogers said Saturday night that the $1 million might actually be earmarked for the Waterfront Promenade, a parallel project with the Gateway for a pedestrian walkway along Railroad Avenue from Lincoln Street to Valley Creek Estuary Park.
The promenade will cost $1.3 million, said Rogers, who met with Murray in August when the senator viewed plans for the project.
The city has the rest of the money for the promenade in its budget, she said.
Rogers said she hoped to get the funding destination clarified from Murray’s or Dicks’ office as early as today.
* $400,000 in bus funding for Clallam Transit.
* $13.45 million for continued work on the project to remove the two dams on the Elwha River and restore fish and wildlife habitat in the river corridor.
Dicks, D-Bremerton, ranking Democrat on the House Interior Appropriations Subcommittee, said the federal government has appropriated a total of $126.7 million to the restoration project in the past several years.
* $550,000 for research into the dissolved oxygen problem that is threatening fish populations in Hood Canal.
That includes $350,000 in the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey and $200,000 in the Environmental Protection Agency’s environmental management account, which will be added to $1.4 million in U.S. Navy research funding that was allocated in July for use in the current fiscal year, Dicks said.
In the previous year, $850,000 was appropriated for researched into dissolved oxygen.
Dicks said the bill also funds two other efforts he launched in recent years — a program to restore culverts that affect fish passage along streams and rivers, and a program of identifying hatchery-raised salmon stocks in order to protect threatened and endangered species.
