PORT ANGELES — A state fisheries biologist says a hydraulics permit for the proposed state Department of Transportation graving yard hinges on replacing fish habitat lost in project construction.
Transportation and Port of Port Angeles officials must come up with a mitigation plan to replace fish habitat lost when a massive channel is dredged into Port Angeles Harbor, said Bob Burkle, state Fish and Wildlife biologist based in Montesano.
Burkle oversees the Port Angeles fisheries office.
“Because the (graving yard channel) entrance is steep, and can’t be extended beyond the property lines of the Port, (Transportation needs) to armor the sides of inner-tidal and shallow sub-tidal fish habitat at the entrance to the channel with barred rock,” Burkle said. “The significance of the habitat is juvenile salmon feed on the organisms growing in fine-grained sub-strait down to an elevation of minus 10, so they would be removing this area from productivity.”
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