SEQUIM — Clallam County officials are working on an additional grant to move forward on the Dungeness Off-channel Reservoir project.

The county has already been awarded a $4-million-dollar grant from the Department of Ecology, but still needs more funding in order to start the construction phase.

We spoke with Carol Creasey, the county’s hydrogeologist, about what the county still needs to get this project underway, and what the timeline would be if the county had all the money it needed.

“We need funds for construction. We have done funds from ecology streamflow restoration grand for an acquisition permitting design and partnership agreements, but we now need money for construction and that nine million dollars. If we were to get that Grant would go a long way for getting the funds for construction. We will also need to get other grants from other grant opportunities because we need about $16 to 17 million dollars, even if we were to get a PSAR grant if we had all the money we needed. We got all the grants that we need for construction, we could construct the reservoir probably in five years.”

The PSAR grant Creasey referred to is the money issued from the entity known as Puget Sound Partnership and Restoration.

The Dungeness Off-Channel Reservoir would capture river flows during the winter, and then that water would be released in the late summer months for irrigation and other benefits.

Thus far, the Reservoir Project has been a ten-year effort by a coalition of project partners that includes Clallam County, City of Sequim, Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe, Dungeness Water Users Association, Clallam Conservation District, Washington Department of Ecology and the Washington Water Trust.