Feds: State doesn’t need to extend excavation

SEATTLE – The state does not need to extend archaeological work beyond a 9 1/2 -acre section of a construction site where Indian graves were found, the Federal Highway Administration said in a preliminary opinion Wednesday.

The agency was weighing in on a disagreement between the state and the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe over a former Indian village site – including human remains – in Port Angeles.

Carbon dating indicates the village could be more than 1,700 years old.

The area is part of a 22-acre work site in that Olympic Peninsula city, where Washington’s Transportation Department is building a graving yard to build pontoons for Hood Canal Bridge reconstruction.

DOT work stopped last year when human remains were found.

“The DOT and the Federal Highway Administration (have) put forth a good-faith effort to try to do additional burial recovery below and outside the area of potential effect,” said Daniel Mathis, the federal agency’s division administrator in Olympia.

“Technically there’s no law that says we need to do further exploration or excavation,” he said.

A final decision is expected after the federal agency hears comments from the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation in Washington, D.C. Those comments aren’t expected until at least Dec. 10, Mathis said.

In March, the state and tribe agreed on archaeological work to recover Indian remains and artifacts from a section of the graving-yard site.

DOT spokeswoman Linda Mullen estimates that another six to 12 weeks of recovery work remains.

“We have a lot of time and money invested at this site, but there’s also not a lot of options around” for the massive pontoon project, she said.

The discovery of remains has already delayed completion of the nearly $300 million bridge-replacement project for about a year – until 2007.

Since March, however, hundreds of additional full or partial remains have been found. The tribe now worries that without further excavation, some ancestral remains will be lost forever.

“It is very important for us spiritually and culturally to have the ancestors removed from the site,” said Frances G. Charles, tribal chairwoman.

State Transportation Secretary Doug MacDonald said Wednesday’s opinion supports the location, procedures and protocols that have been followed at the site.

“We hope the (federal) letter will help in our discussion with the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe and the communities on the Olympic Peninsula who know the importance of the Hood Canal Bridge Replacement Project,” MacDonald said.

More than 260 full skeletons and about 700 partial skeletons have been found at the former site of Tse-whit-zen, one of the largest known Klallam villages. Tribal elders say the village was occupied until about 1915, when mill construction forced the residents out.

The Hood Canal Bridge, built on a series of pontoons, is vital to the economy of the Olympic Peninsula. It carries as many as 20,000 vehicles a day during the summer.

Parts of the span are wearing out. The state DOT wants to replace the eastern half of the bridge, which means constructing 14 new pontoons and refurbishing three existing ones.