DOT starts building bridge pieces in Tacoma

Dec. 2, 2005

Peninsula News Network

Port Angeles, WA - The State Department of Transportation confirms that it has quietly started building the pontoons for the new Hood Canal Bridge using facilities in Tacoma and Seattle.

Of course the original plan had been to fabricate the new concrete pontoons and anchors for the rebuilt span here in Port Angeles, where Department of Transportation spent more than 60-million dollars to construct a new graving dock. DOT had also hoped to use the facility to eventually make components for a rebuilt 520 floating bridge in a few years from now.

But the discovery of human remains and artifacts from the Klallam village of Tse-whit-zen thwarted those plans and a year ago DOT stopped the project.

DOT engineers had been trying to find a new place to fabricate the pontoons and anchors for most of this year. Now, the Peninsula Daily News reports that process has started without fanfare at Concrete Technology’s construction yard in Tacoma. DOT tells the paper the pontoons will be fabricated in Tacoma and then sent north to a shipyard in Seattle for assembly…

That’s similar to the process that was used to make pontoons for the western half of the Hood Canal Bridge more than 20-years ago. Those sections were also put together in Tacoma and then towed north to the bridge site, where they replaced the pieces that had sank in a 1979 storm.

State officials tell the PDN they still haven’t decided where to make the anchors for the bridge, and there’s still a chance that work might be sent to Port Angeles. Port officials have talked with DOT about using land adjacent to the graving dock for that work, since it wouldn’t involve excavation and the disturbing of any other Klallam remains that might be in the vicinity.