PORT ANGELES — Valley Creek Estuary is officially the city’s newest park.
Members of Soroptomist International of Port Angeles, which spearheaded the 2.6-acre project, on Saturday morning bestowed the estuary to the city of Port Angeles amid a ribbon-cutting and several speeches about the six-year effort to restore the area from a log yard to an estuary.
“It’s really great to see what everyone has done,” Soroptomist President Lori Oakes said to about 70 people who attended the celebration at the park’s pavilion along the waterfront at the west end of Front Street.
With a halt in the recent rains that have pounded western Washington, state Rep. Lynn Kessler, D-Hoquiam, joked: “This is the nicest weather on the Peninsula, and I think there is a blessing on this project.”
The Soroptomists first took note of the project after a 1992 presentation by Port of Port Angeles officials about the desire of K Ply Inc. to fill in a manmade pond with soil to expand its operations.
By filling in the pond, K Ply was obligated under a “no net loss” rule to create an alternative wetland area nearby.
Port officials pursued the required permits for several years, and by 1996 an interlocal agreement was in place between the Port and the city.
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The rest of the story appears in Sunday’s Peninsula Daily News.