Lawmakers shocked over '90 Tse-whit-zen report 3/14/05 - “Disappointing”. “Amazing”. “Shocking”. Those are just some of the words 24th District lawmakers have been using to describe the “rediscovery” of a 1990 report that nearly pinpointed the location of the Tse-whit-zen village site 15-years ago. Peninsula News Network unearthed the reports a couple of weeks ago, reports that were prepared during an expansion of the Daishowa America mill right next door to the Department of Transportation’s ill-fated dry dock project. The 1990 reports, written by the same archeological team that did the recovery work on Tse-whit-zen last year, didn’t pinpoint the location of Tse-whit-zen. But archeologist Lynn Larsen did say there was considerable evidence of the village in the area and recommended further exploration before any other “subsurface” work was done in the area. Since our original story, copies of the reports have been circulating in Olympia, where they are getting close scrutiny by the 24th District Legislative delegation. State Representative Lynn Kessler says she was “shocked” to learn that the 1990 report gave such specific information about the village location and yet the details were never brought forward as the DOT’s project was in the planning stage. Representative Jim Buck says it’s “amazing” that none of the state agencies accessed the reports, especially since copies were sent to Department of Ecology and the State Office of Historical Preservation. Both representatives believe the 1990 reports have raised serious
questions that need to be answered in the aftermath
|