Port of Port Angeles commissioners and staff will go to Olympia on Thursday to lobby against a bill limiting future uses of a state-built graving yard planned for Port Angeles’ waterfront.
“Unless there’s considerable input from us, there’s a good chance for Todd Shipyards to get what they want,” said Leonard Beil, one of the three Port commissioners.
“I don’t see how the Legislature can do this to our community. They are robbing the North Olympic Peninsula of 16 years of economic development.”
A hearing on Senate Bill 6050, sponsored by a Mercer Island lawmaker, is scheduled for 3:30 p.m. Thursday in Senate Hearing Room 1 in the capital.
The bill was introduced last week in response to the Seattle-based shipyard’s efforts to get lawmakers to forbid or restrict the Port Angeles graving yard — a huge onshore dry dock that will be built by the state Department of Transportation for $16 million to $20 million.
Todd does not want the graving yard used for private shipyard work after it’s used to build replacement pontoons and anchors for the Hood Canal Bridge.
The floating bridge project will be completed by the summer of 2006.
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