By Pepper Fisher

PORT ANGELES – Scheduling for the fish passage projects planned for Lees, Ennis and Tumwater Creeks in Port Angeles along Highway 101 has been pushed back a bit.

The project was to begin next summer, but has been delayed until sometime in the fall.

Here’s the DOT’s Tina Werner.

So, the primary factor that has contributed to that delay is that we’re trying to design very complex solutions to be the best fit for each of the site’s challenges that our design team as has encountered. So right now, we’re looking at projects for all three streams to be advertised in the summer of 2022, with construction potentially beginning later that fall.”

The biggest change to traffic during construction will be that all through-traffic on Lincoln Street will be diverted to the Tumwater Truck Route, and traffic is expected to be interrupted for two years.

The Ennis and Lees Creek projects, on either side of Monroe Road at the east end of town, will likely narrow 101 to one lane each way.

All three jobs will take place concurrently and will be performed by the same contractor. Advertising for a contractor will not begin until next summer.

A similar project at Indian Creek, on 101 just west of the Elwha River Bridge, will begin next spring. Traffic will be diverted to a shoo-fly, or temporary bypass, around the culvert as workers build a concrete girder bridge.

And finally, Werner says the Elwha River Bridge replacement project is expected to begin next summer and should be completed by the fall of 2023.