PORT ANGELES — With the tear-down of the Glines Canyon and Elwha dams set to start in fewer than six months, Barnard Construction Co. is making plans to move in and get started.
The Missoula, Mont., firm is eyeing adjacent Clallam County and Olympic National Park properties off Lower Dam Road near state Highway 112 west of Port Angeles as its headquarters for equipment maintenance and fuel storage for the project, Clallam County engineer Ross Tyler said last week.
The 108-foot Elwha Dam and the 210-foot Glines Canyon Dam will be torn down to restore salmon habitat in the largest project of its kind in the nation’s history.
The project remains on schedule to begin Sept. 17 and end by September 2014, said Olympic National Park spokeswoman Barb Maynes.
Company officials would not be interviewed last week “due to the volume of requests for comment we are receiving,” project manager Brian Krohmer said in an email.
But Krohmer confirmed Barnard’s intentions.
“We are pursuing the county’s property on Lower Dam Road for an office/staging area,” he wrote, saying the company also is interested in the National Park Service property.
By July, Barnard expects to have work plans for the project ready to be reviewed by the National Park Service, Krohmer wrote, adding that “a significant portion of work” will be subcontracted — with much of that going to local businesses.
“As far as the Barnard workforce, a few key staff members will mobilize by May with most craftspeople mobilizing in August/September,” Krohmer said.
The approximately four-acre Lower Dam Road site — about 100 yards from where the 11-story Elwha Dam is dramatically visible — is at a former Elwha River overlook off state Highway 112 and is situated across Lower Dam Road from the Elwha Dam RV Park.
Officials said the recreational vehicle park will be unaffected by project-related traffic.
Tyler added that the county wants to have pedestrian access to an overlook above Lower Dam Road to allow people to watch the 108-foot edifice being torn down.
“It we get it set up right, it will be a real nice spot,” Tyler said.
“Obviously, we have to have pedestrian and construction traffic separated.”
The company’s preliminary site plan for the headquarters shows three office trailers, a mechanic/maintenance shop and storage area, “waste oil and fuel storage with containment,” a Forest Service outhouse, a “material stockpile/reload area” and “minor tree clearing/trimming as needed.”
“They are in a fine-tuning mode,” Tyler said Friday.
Muck, logs and other debris wedged under the Elwha edifice after the gravity dam blew out during construction in 1912 also would be stored there before being taken off-site, Tyler said.
“Several thousand yards need to come out,” he said. “It’s going to be real sloppy.”
Tyler said he met at the site about a week and a half ago with dam removal project manager Monica Norval of the National Park Service’s Denver Service Center; Barnard’s project superintendent, Aaron Jenkins; and Krohmer to narrow down plans for the staging-storage area.
“It is pretty obvious now that this dam removal project is going to happen,” Tyler added.
“No matter how a person feels about the viability of the project, no one can say it won’t be a very interesting project.”
Go-ahead is contingent on the results of a cultural resources survey to determine if Native American artifacts are present, Tyler said.
Olympic National Park has done a cultural resources survey of the area between the county property north to the limits of the state Highway 112 right-of-way, and nothing that would prevent the project from proceeding was discovered, Tyler said.
Use of Olympic National Park property depends on the agreement between Barnard and Clallam County to use the county property, Norval said.
“I don’t anticipate it will be a problem,” she said.
Barnard’s $27 million contract is part of the $325 million Elwha River Restoration Project to restore the river’s once-thriving salmon run.
Exactly how the dams will be torn down and specific time lines for stages of dam removal are still being determined between Barnard and the Denver Service Center, Maynes said.
“Plan submittals have begun, but they’re not final yet,” she said.
“Until it’s finalized, it’s not released.”
Park staff usually don’t know when Barnard Construction staff are in Port Angeles.
“They come on their own, do whatever they need to do, and they go back” to Montana, Maynes said.
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Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-417-3536 or at paul.gottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.
