OLYMPIA — Language might be included in the 2005-2007 state budget authorizing the state attorney general or auditor to investigate the abandonment of the Port Angeles graving yard project.
Rep. Jim Buck, R-Joyce, said he spoke with House Transportation Committee Chairman Ed Murray, D-Seattle, who told him a “budget proviso” might be included in the state’s next two-year spending plan.
The proviso, a funding condition or restriction, would include money and authority for an investigation of events surrounding the state Department of Transportation’s cancellation of its Hood Canal Bridge graving yard project at a cost of $58.8 million so far.
Buck, along with Rep. Lynn Kessler, D-Hoquiam, and Sen. Jim Hargrove, D-Hoquiam, represent the 24th District, which includes Clallam and Jefferson counties.
“There’s the potential for a budget proviso,” Buck said.
“Murray said it would give money for the attorney general or state auditor to do an audit because the Transportation Performance Audit Board doesn’t have the muscle to do it right.”
Audit board asked
Republican members of the House Transportation Committee, of which Buck is one, had sent a letter in February to the newly-created Transportation Performance Audit Board asking it to investigate the graving yard situation.
The letter was sent after Gov. Christine Gregoire backed away from earlier statements that appeared to support forming a legislative task force to investigate the issue.
State Auditor Brian Sonntag’s office audits state agencies for both proper use and accounting of funds and compliance with all state and federal laws.
State Attorney General Rob McKenna’s office also can audit state agencies.
Buck said the bill he and Rep. Lynn Kessler, D-Hoquiam, co-sponsored to prohibit Transportation from selling the 22.5-acre graving yard property without legislative approval died over procedural issues in the House Transportation Committee last week.
HB 2283 was introduced March 4. It was co-sponsored by Buck, Kessler, Rep. Bev Woods, R-Poulsbo, the ranking Republican on the House Transportation Committee, and 10 other legislators.
The normal cutoff for bills to get out of their committees was March 1, and there wasn’t enough time to hold hearings on the bill with work on the state’s budget deficit looming, Buck said.
Huge budget deficit
The state faces a $2.2 billion deficit for the 2005-2007 biennium.
But Buck said he and Kessler both talked to Transportation Secretary Doug MacDonald about not selling the graving yard property “and MacDonald appeared to get the message.”
The Transportation Department acquired the Marine Drive property just east of the Nippon Paper Industries USA mill in 2003 to build the giant onshore dry dock to build components for the Hood Canal Bridge and other state floating bridges in the future.
But the discovery of hundreds of Klallam burials and thousands of artifacts — remnants of the 2,700-year-old village of Tse-whit-zen — caused MacDonald and then-Gov. Gary Locke to halt the project last Dec. 21.
Transportation currently is assessing other sites for the graving yard to build a new east half of the aging Hood Canal Bridge.
