The Arizona Daily Star
12.18.2004
PORT ANGELES, Wash. - The remains of hundreds of ancient Indians unearthed at a large bridge construction site have state officials ready to cut their losses - millions of dollars and months of delays - and find another site.
"It is true we've spent money we won't get back, but we also have found a
major historical site that's important to understanding the culture of the
Pacific Northwest coast," state Transportation Secretary Doug MacDonald said Friday.
The state has already spent $55 million on a project initially slated to
cost $283 million.
State officials have all but decided to abandon the waterfront site they
planned to use to build new pontoons and anchors for the aging Hood Canal
floating bridge. But MacDonald said that before an official decision is made
the agency must clarify future plans for the site with the Lower Elwah
Klallam Tribe, the city of Port Angeles, and federal and state leaders.
He would not give specific details but said talks would include what will
happen to the site and how it will be used.
"We don't just want to be in a position of lurching forward. We have to be
able to give people a sense of what's going to happen," MacDonald said.
The 22.5-acre site on Olympic Peninsula was the favored spot for the state's
dry dock because other sites were too small or presented permit and
hazardous waste issues. But on Aug. 20, 2003, the first human bone fragment
was found and work was shut down six days later.
The site is where the Klallam village of Tse-whit-zen stood for 1,700 years
before it was leveled in the 1920s to make way for a sawmill.
Both the state and the tribe were aware of the former village, and the
Transportation Department hired Western Shores Heritage Services to survey
the site for archaeological remains.
Limited by on-site concrete slabs and buildings, Western Shores concluded
there was no evidence of significant ancient remains within the boundaries
of the proposed project site. The tribe's analysis of an 1853 U.S. Coast
Survey map also showed the village was south and east of the planned dry
dock.
No one was anticipated the hundreds of full or partial remains that have
been found.
The discoveries continued this week at the waterfront site where
archaeologists painstakingly brushed away heavy, compacted dirt to reveal
what may be a grass mat, or perhaps remnants of a ceremonial costume.