PORT ANGELES — A second access road to the Lower Elwha Klallam reservation will be open next month, provided the three Clallam County commissioners agree to adopt a portion of it into the county road system.
The federally funded Elwha Valley Road veers west from the existing Lower Elwha Road at Kacee Way and parallels the Olympic Discovery Trail until it drops onto the Elwha River delta and ties into Stratton Road near the Elwha River Casino and tribal fish hatchery.
Commissioners next Tuesday will call for a Nov. 20 public hearing to add the upper portion of the road into the county’s 500-mile network by resolution.
Barring any issues at the hearing, County Engineer Ross Tyler said the new road can open Nov. 20.
Carol Brown, the tribe’s economic development manager, told commissioners this week that the road is “good to go.”
Segment scaled back
A modified agreement between the county and the tribe scales back the county-owned segment from the reservation boundary to the top of the hill.
“If you go out there today, it’s a fully functional, drivable road, but it doesn’t have all of the design geometry that we feel that we need, and they don’t have the money yet to bring it up to that level,” Tyler told commissioners.
“It’s not like it’s a gravel road or something. It’s going to be striped. But it needs a little more work to it before we’re satisfied that we can bring it into the county.”
‘Stopgap measure’
The modified memorandum of understanding is “kind of a stopgap measure to get the road open as soon as possible,” Tyler said.
“Everything that the county is responsible for is now 100 percent to our specifications,” he added.
“And so we feel comfortable with it.”
If the tribe secures more funds to complete the modifications, the county would take ownership — and the maintenance responsibility — for the road all the way to the reservation boundary.
The $9 million federal project, which includes the widening of Stratton Road, was needed to increase safety, reduce response time for emergency vehicles and provide the tribe with an adequate evacuation route during a tsunami or other natural disaster, tribal officials have said.
Currently, the only access to the reservation is the narrow and shoulder-free Lower Elwha Road.
Including shoulders, the new Elwha Valley Road is 34 feet wide.
“It’s a beautiful, scenic route,” Tribal Chairwoman Frances Charles said in an interview.
“Everybody’s excited about it. It took a lot of work, a lot of effort, a lot of collaboration and a lot of outreach to fund the work itself.”
Evacuation route
The new road, which will become the tribe’s primary access point, will assuage long-standing concerns over tsunami evacuations and mudslides that have on occasion isolated the community during winter storms, Charles said.
“Carol Brown and staff really worked hard on it,” she added.
“We raise our hands up to our staff, the commissioners and the county. It was a real team effort.”
A ribbon-cutting ceremony for the new road is planned for a date and time to be determined.
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Reporter Rob Ollikainen can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5072, or at rollikainen@peninsuladailynews.com.
