Clallam County completes Town Road relocation and floodplain restoration after multiyear, multi‑grant effort

Clallam County officials reported that a multiyear effort to relocate Town Road out of the Dungeness River floodplain and to restore the river’s historic floodplain has reached substantial completion after more than a decade of planning, grants and phased construction.

County staff presented a timeline showing the project’s evolution from an original 2002 placeholder roadway reconstruction through a major redesign, levee setback work, restored floodplain and a new pedestrian and bicycle trail on the new roadway embankment.

The plan matters because relocating the road and setting back the levee was intended to reduce flood risk for adjacent properties, reconnect the river to its historic floodplain and improve salmon and wildlife habitat while restoring a regional transportation link. County presenters told commissioners the work also produced a raised pedestrian/bicycle trail, guardrail, stormwater treatment measures and other features not normally installed on county roads.

County staff said the Town Road section is a roughly 2.8‑mile stretch from Woodcock Road north to the old schoolhouse. Design alternatives considered between about 2009 and 2016 included several levee and road alignments; the final approach combined a continuous setback levee, removal of the 1964 levee at the river edge, and relocation of the road onto the new levee alignment.

The federal Corps of Engineers led design work initially. By 2016 the county took the lead role for part of the project. Funding for planning, land acquisition, design and construction flowed through a patchwork of federal and state grants and partner contributions, county road‑fund allocations, and reimbursements from grants such as the Department of Ecology and Recreation and Conservation Office (RCO). The Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe and North Olympic Land Trust acquired and contributed property that enabled the upper setback levee and linked the upper and lower projects.

Construction phases accelerated after a 2022 levy breach and record floods exposed remaining floodplain risk. The board declared an emergency on Aug. 2, 2022; staff said that declaration allowed work to move forward quickly and that Scarcello Brothers performed much of the expedited construction. The county said the tribe removed a section of old County levy, an effort county staff estimated saved about $1 million.

County staff provided a budget summary that treated the overall program as three linked efforts (road relocation, lower floodplain restoration, and the tribe‑led upper setback work) because each had distinct fund sources, permitting and management. The presentation estimated total program costs in the roughly $23–24 million range when restoration and Town Road are combined. Staff said the county’s net, direct fiscal exposure after grant reimbursements and partner contributions was small relative to the total: county records in the presentation showed about $250,000 in net county‑absorbed costs beyond staff time (the county also reported roughly $5.3 million in grants reimbursed into a general fund advance of $5.4 million, leaving a modest ending balance after indirects).

The county described several cost drivers that arose during construction: discovering more extensive subgrade remediation needs when the old road was removed (staff estimated remediation at about $1.1 million), higher bid costs in a constrained market in 2021–22, and extra work triggered by high river flows during the La Niña winter cycles. Staff told commissioners a switch from a crown‑style roadway to a monoslope profile saved roughly $600,000–$700,000; when combined with low unit bids on the road surfacing contract the final road‑surface contract plus required stormwater and curbing came in near earlier revised estimates.

County staff said the Corps of Engineers completed a final inspection and that the setback levee and restored floodplain have begun to slow flows in high‑water events while creating reconnected channels where salmon have returned. The county also noted the project provided a regional transportation benefit: reopening Town Road relieved traffic on adjacent routes and created an additional evacuation and first‑responder access route.

Commissioners discussed next steps, including monitoring for speeding and recreational impacts now that the road and trail are open, additional monitoring obligations tied to Corps and state permits (vegetation monitoring in restored wetlands and periodic water‑quality checks for the stormwater treatment system), and the potential need to consider whether parts of the site should be treated as a county park or otherwise managed for increasing recreational use.

Commissioners and staff recommended short‑term follow‑ups: post‑construction traffic counts and speed monitoring, continued coordination on wetland and invasive‑species monitoring, and a cross‑department conversation about maintenance responsibilities and visitor amenities. Staff emphasized the project’s multi‑agency funding and the complexity of tracking numerous grant budgets and permit requirements.

The commissioners praised staff, tribal and non‑profit partners for the project's outcome and asked staff to return with updated traffic and monitoring data later this summer or fall.