PORT ANGELES — Plans to break a “stalemate” at the Hood Canal graving yard site will be discussed this week in a meeting among tribal, state and federal officials.

“We seem to have arrived at a stalemate in negotiations, and I hope with this meeting on Wednesday that we can arrive at some mutual agreements in a professional manner,” said Lower Elwha Klallam Tribal Chairman Dennis R. “Sully” Sullivan.

“We seemed to have lost focus.”

Officials of the agencies involved in the negotiations are not commenting on the progress of the private negotiations.

But the Department of Transportation, which is coordinating the $204 million Hood Canal Bridge improvement project, said the delay has clouded the agency’s timeline for doing the work.

“We won’t have new information about timelines until a memorandum of agreement and modified monitoring plan is in place,” said Linda Mullen, Transportation’s director of communication.

“Until we know the conditions we are working under, there is no way to estimate a schedule or budget.”

Working on the graving yard has been virtually halted for more than two months after Native American remains and artifacts were found on the Marine Drive site just east of the Nippon Paper Industries USA mill.

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The rest of the story appears in Monday’s Peninsula Daily News.