PORT ORCHARD — Tribal and transportation leaders met here Tuesday to discuss the future of the Hood Canal Bridge graving yard site in Port Angeles, and agreed on three things:
* Both groups will meet with individuals and organizations in Port Angeles soon to exchange their respective viewpoints in public — probably starting next week.
* The chances of reviving construction on the 22.5-acre site are, in the words of a principal participant, about the same as a lightning strike.
* And the day in August 2003 that contractors broke ground on the Port Angeles site was the project’s last good day.
Members of the Lower Elwha Klallam tribe and officials of the state Department of Transportation met for the first time in nearly a month in Transportation’s Hood Canal Bridge engineering office in Port Orchard.
They addressed an issue that has grown more divisive as political, business and labor onlookers have felt left out of the process that eventually terminated the project.
“WSDOT and the tribe have agreed to meet with the community with a time and date to be set to exchange viewpoints,” said Linda Mullen, Washington State Department of Transportation, or WSDOT, communications director.
“But with no expectation that lightning will strike.”
Lower Elwha Klallam Tribal Chairwoman Frances Charles said: “We had a very productive discussion today and are continuing with a listing of each agency’s priorities, in addition to the question, ‘Where do we go from here?”‘
Next for the site
Where they go means “what’s going to happen to the site,” said Charles, not when graving yard construction will resume.
The waterfront site on Marine Drive would have built and floated huge concrete anchors, pontoons, and bridge decks to replace the east end of the Hood Canal Bridge. Ground was broken Aug. 6, 2003.
“That was the last good day on this project,” Transportation Secretary Doug MacDonald told the Port Angeles Chamber of Commerce on Monday.
“I believe the crisis started on groundbreaking day,” Charles said on Tuesday.
