State pays $17 million to settle site dispute

PORT ANGELES, Wash. – Washington state will pay more than $17 million to tribal and local officials to settle lingering disputes over the state’s accidental disturbance of an ancient American Indian village and burial ground.

The settlement, announced Monday by Gov. Chris Gregoire, ends litigation surrounding the state Department of Transportation’s abandoned bridge project and gives the Lower Elwha Klallam tribe control over most of the site.

Work on concrete pontoons for a Hood Canal bridge project stopped in 2003 after officials discovered human remains in the area. Construction resumed less than a year later but was halted for good in December 2004.

More than 350 skeletal remains and numerous Indian artifacts eventually were found at the site, where Lower Elwha Klallam members had lived in a village called Tse-whit-zen.

The error cost the state an estimated $87 million. Work on the bridge pontoons was later transferred to a Tacoma site.

“This agreement brings positive closure to a difficult and painful experience and new hope for a brighter economic future for the entire community,” Gregoire said in a statement.