PORT ANGELES — Local, state and congressional representatives said Tuesday the graving yard project’s departure is devastating, but they held out hope for a solution to keep it here.
“We’re worse off now than two years ago,” Mayor Richard Headrick said.
“Back then we were using it for log storage,” he said of the 22.5-acre graving yard site on Marine Drive.
The Port of Port Angeles negotiated with timber interests to move the log storage elsewhere so the state Department of Transportation could use the property — later sold to the department for $4.8 million — for the graving yard project.
“The state said if the tribe won’t agree, they won’t pursue it,” Headrick said.
“The state was afraid they would get bad press. So they took the easy but financially hard way out.”
The question still remains of what to do with the property.
Headrick said the state will need to pay significant liquidated damages to the contractor if the site is abandoned.
“There’s $40 million worth of precut sheet piling, which has limited value,” he said.
“So it is going to cost the state a lot of money. It’s going to cost the state a lot and it’s going to cost us a lot.”
Fight vowed
City Councilwoman Karen Rogers said the fight to keep the graving yard project here has only begun.
“They couldn’t have waited three more weeks?” she asked.
“I’m one ticked off council member.”
