Wednesday
Heading to the hall
Clouds and sun warming us up slowly B10
Mariners’ Ken Griffey Jr. showed early talent B1
PENINSULA DAILY NEWS July 20, 2016 | 75¢
Port Angeles-Sequim-West End
Stats focus on opioid overdoses Five fatalities, six months BY ROB OLLIKAINEN PENINSULA DAILY NEWS
PORT ANGELES — Health officials in Clallam County, the first county in the state to mandate opioid overdose reporting, have reported 41 opioid drug overdoses, including five fatalities, in the first six months of the year. Seventy-three percent of the known overdoses between Jan. 1
and June 30 were caused by heroin. The rest were the result of prescription medications with brand names like Vicodin, Percocet or OxyContin, according to new data. Clallam County this year became the first in the state to mandate the reporting of fatal and non-fatal opioid overdoses by hospital emergency rooms and the county coroner. Dr. Christopher Frank, the Clal-
ing system that is similar to Clallam County health officer who spearheaded the reporting requirelam County’s. ment, shared the data with the Because the system is so new county Board of Health on Tuesday. — only three months old — there The data will be used to help have been no overdoses officially prevent opioid misuse and abuse, recorded in the county, said Dr. to treat opioid addiction and to Thomas Locke, Jefferson County prevent overdoses in the future, health officer. Frank said. Since the county began distrib“Really we think of it as a pipeuting naloxone — a fast-acting Locke line, a continuum, from people Frank drug that reverses opioid overdose becoming addicted, to not being — through its syringe-exchange able to have effective treatment to program, two users have reported then being at risk for overdoses told the Board of Health. using their kits, he said. Jefferson County recently and us not being able to really TURN TO OPIOIDS/A4 measure what’s going on,” Frank started an opioid overdose record-
County awards reroute contract
Light on the horizon
Project will tackle damaged rural road BY JESSE MAJOR PENINSULA DAILY NEWS
KEITH THORPE/PENINSULA DAILY NEWS
Chris Keithley of Spokane-based Colvico Inc., stacks boxes containing new light fixtures onto a fork lift after they were delivered to Port Angeles Civic Field on Tuesday. The stadium will receive a $562,292 lighting upgrade, funded primarily through grants, that will replace the existing 38-yearold lights with a low-maintenance, energy-efficient state-of-the-art LED system that promises more illumination on the field and lower maintenance costs. Installation is expected to begin next week with project completion expected by Aug. 31.
Port official backs away from commercial air announcement Prospective carrier still months away from service talks BY PAUL GOTTLIEB PENINSULA DAILY NEWS
PORT ANGELES — So close, yet so far. Again. Port of Port Angeles officials were hoping to announce in the next few weeks that an airline would resume scheduled commercial air-passenger service at William R. Fairchild Interna• • • •
tional Airport, port Executive Director Karen Goschen said Tuesday. The North Olympic Peninsula has been bereft of scheduled passenger airline service since November 2014, when Kenmore Air, Goschen which flew to Seattle, closed up shop at Fairchild. But the prospective carrier, which Goschen would not name, is reviewing its existing operations and instead hopes to begin negotiating with the port in the next six to nine months to provide flights to Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, Goschen told three dozen Port Angeles
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Business Association breakfast meeting participants, which included port Commissioners Connie Beauvais and Steve Burke. It’s the same carrier the port has been negotiating with since at least Feb. 22, when port commissioners said they hoped to learn by August if the company would make a go of it in Port Angeles, port Airport and Marina Manager Jerry Ludke said in an interview Tuesday. Goschen said during her multifaceted presentation on port operations that she got the disappointing news Monday while talking with an official with the company who said an internal review of airline operations is wrapping up. TURN NEW 2016 RAM
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Several options have been discussed by commissioners since the damage occurred, including considering canceling the job and forcing the 13 people living beyond the damaged section of road to fend for themselves. Reinders said people drive 40 to 50 trips across that stretch of road on any given day. The current project is intended to create an alternate route using 1.3 miles of existing state Department of Natural Resources road and another 0.9 miles of steep terrain construction. “We don’t have any other options,” he said. According to the plan, an alternate route will be constructed that will follow existing Natural Resources roads for approximately 1.3 miles, at which point a new road will be constructed for approximately 0.9 miles and connect with Undie Road beyond the damaged area. For the project, the county had to secure permits and property rights, a complicated and time-consuming process, Reinders said. “We would have liked to start sooner, but it’s complicated going through the right of way and permitting process,” he said.
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PORT TOWNSEND –– Jefferson County commissioners have unanimously agreed to award a $905,310 bid for rerouting part of Undie Road around a section with significant damage in West Jefferson County. Interwest Construction Inc. of Burlington will start construction on the West End road project either Aug. 1 or 2 and should finish by the end of this construction season, Monte Reinders, Jefferson County Public Works Director, said Tuesday. The goal is to finish the road before the rainy season hits in mid-November, he said. The bid was awarded during the commissioners’ regular meeting Monday. The 0.8-mile stretch of Undie Road on the north bank of the Bogachiel River south of Forks was severely damaged during fall and winter storms and is now reduced to one barely navigable lane.
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