PORT ANGELES — A group of Federal Highway Administration archeologists and historians visited Port Angeles on Wednesday to view the defunct Hood Canal Bridge graving yard construction site and meet with local and tribal officials.
No decisions were made during fact-finding sessions at the Clallam County Courthouse and later on the Lower Elwha Klallam reservation.
The federal officials are analyzing the historical significance of the 22.5-acre construction site, in which a portion of the 2,700-year-old Klallam village of Tse-whit-zen was unearthed.
More than 80 percent of the Hood Canal Bridge retrofit and replacement project is federally funded through a Federal Highway Administration bridge replacement program. Purchase of the waterfront site in 2003 from the Port of Port Angeles for a dry dock to build components for the floating bridge was included in that funding.
