OLYMPIA — Gov. Jay Inslee’s 2023-25 proposed capital budget includes over $118 million for the North Olympic Peninsula, $72.6 million of which would give new life to a Hood Canal estuary degraded by U.S. Highway 101.
The Duckabush restoration project anchors an overall allocation for Clallam and Jefferson counties heavy with salmon-protecting natural resource projects — and which also twinkles with efforts ranging from improving Spartan Field in Forks to a $2 million request from the Port Angeles Waterfront Center’s Field Arts & Events Hall.
Inslee’s $8.9 billion proposal, half financed through bond proceeds, covers projects from July 1 through June 30, 2025.
It contains proposals from agencies such as the departments of Natural Resources and Fish and Wildlife that seek millions in requests affecting Clallam and Jefferson counties.
Friday was the deadline for House and Senate members to submit proposals for community capital projects not included in Inslee’s plan. It marks the end of the sixth week of the 105-day session.
Those additional proposals include the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe’s $25.7 million ask for a psychiatric evaluation and treatment clinic and the Port of Port Townsend’s $1 million request for purchasing the 253-acre Short Farm, a proposal submitted by 24th District Rep. Mike Chapman of Port Angeles.
The district includes Clallam and Jefferson counties and the Hoquiam half of Grays Harbor County. All representing the district are Democrats.
Chapman said Thursday he also submitted proposals for an additional $3.55 million for the Field Center, $2 million for the planned Feiro Marine Life Center-National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Discovery Center on the Port Angeles Waterfront Center parcel, and $770,000 for the city of Sequim for a park- acquisition connection to Olympic Discovery Trail.
Steve Tharinger of Port Townsend, the 24th district state representative and Capital Budget Committee chair, will steer the budget review.
He joined 24th District state Sen. Kevin Van De Wege of Port Angeles in sponsoring the Jamestown Tribe’s proposal.
Tharinger’s panel and the Senate Ways and Means Committee will hash out Inslee’s spending plan and submit their versions for floor votes, with lawmakers reconciling differences into a final spending plan taken before the entire Legislature. Inslee can veto all or parts of the the package.
The Field Center’s $2 million has a good chance of approval, Tharinger said. “The fact that it’s in the governor’s budget is certainly positive,” he said.
The brackish water that pools where the Duckabush River meets the waterway curls serenely away from drivers as they traverse the road, cut off from tidelands and prevented fulfilling its vital role as salmon habitat.
The project, in the works since at least 2009, would make the river whole again, removing a strip of level highway and replacing it with a 1,600-foot bridge. The span would mitigate high tide and flood hazards and add public-parking access to a wildlife area.
Under it, fish and wildlife would once again move freely from river to estuary.
Fourteen years after a project notice of intent was published in the Federal Register, the state Department of Fish and Wildlife issued a record of decision Jan. 20 adopting the federal environmental impact statement for the project.
“We’re approaching a 65 percent design milestone this year,” agency Environmental Planner Theresa Mitchell said of one of the largest capital project’s in Inslee’s budget.
“One of the challenges is, [the estuary] looks like a very pretty and scenic greenish area,” she said of the drive along 101.
“What people don’t see is the problem. The road and massive fill is the thing preventing that estuary from functioning like it normally would. People don’t know they are driving on 12 feet of fill on top of an estuary,” she said.
“The underpass under the highway will allow fish and wildlife to connect,”
Mitchell said if the project schedule proceeds according to plan, construction could begin in summer-fall 2024 and be completed in 2029.
Needs may be different but are no less urgent for smaller budget requests.
The Quillayute School District’s Spartan Field in Forks has $350,000 in Inslee’s budget for new restrooms as part of an ongoing stadium replacement project.
The former facilities were built in the 1950s, forcing in more modern days the use of portable toilets or making people walk inside the school to use those rest rooms.
“For disabled persons, it’s not convenient either way,” schools Superintendent Diana Reaume said.
“Public rest rooms are not cheap,” she added.
Projects filed Friday are in a gray area, funding-wise.
“We can’t fund them all, we just can’t fund them all,” Chapman said.
“Tharinger’s got some really big demands.”
Tharinger said the 16-bed mental health crisis clinic in Sequim, already awarded project planning funds, may have to wait to move forward.
“They are looking for a lot of money; everyone is looking for money,” Tharinger said.
“The last two bienniums were easier. My pencil is pretty sharp. I just don’t know at this point.”
Jamestown Health Services Director Brent Simcosky was already planning for a negative outcome.
Lawmakers often tell him mental health funding is a priority.
“That always is followed with, ‘it’s a very tight budget,” Simcosky said.
“We’re always working on contingencies,” he added.
“We have a dental clinic we want to build, and we are looking at timelines for that. The dental clinic might move up to the top of the list. That way we are prepared.”
He said the clinic would be built on former Olympic Medical Center property in Sequim.
Eron Berg, Port of Port Townsend executive director, said he submitted the $1 million application for the Short Farm with hopes of engaging in a yearlong community-based planning process to determine future uses on the parcel.
Enhanced habitat on two salmon-bearing streams came to mind, along with farming and farm processing conducted by port tenants.
“We want the farming community to inform the port on what the best uses would be support the agriculture sector economically,” Berg said Friday.
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Legislative Reporter Paul Gottlieb, a former senior reporter at Peninsula Daily News, can be reached at cpaulgottlieb@gmail.com.
