Port Angeles leaders and a state lawmaker are trying to break the admitted “stalemate” over negotiations to restart the Hood Canal Bridge graving yard project.
State Department of Transportation and Lower Elwha Klallam tribal officials are scheduled to meet today to negotiate procedures for dealing with Native American remains and artifacts found on the 22.4-acre waterfront site.
A Lower Elwha tribal leader has said the sides in the issue — which also include federal highway and engineering officials since the $17 million graving yard and $204 million Hood Canal Bridge improvement project are mostly federally funded — are at a “stalemate.”
Few specifics over the impasse have been revealed, but Port Angeles city and Clallam County officials and state Rep. Jim Buck, R-Joyce, have drafted a letter to Transportation and the public in the hopes of spurring negotiations.
Buck read a draft copy of the letter to members of the Port Angeles Chamber of Commerce at the chamber’s Monday luncheon meeting.
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The rest of the story appears in the Wednesday Peninsula Daily News.