For Immediate Release

November 20, 2004

APPROPRIATIONS BILL FUNDS MARITIME CENTER, ELWHA PROJECT

WASHINGTON, D.C. – A special appropriation of $638,000 for the Northwest Maritime Center in Port Townsend was included in a multi-agency appropriations bill that was approved by Congress today, U.S. Rep. Norm Dicks said Saturday.

           The allocation was included in the budget of the Economic Development Initiatives program within the Department of Housing and Urban Development, Rep. Dicks said, representing a strong federal endorsement of the Center's development. 

             The legislation also contains another critical element of the Elwha River restoration project that will remove the two dams on the Elwha River and restore one of Washington's historically productive salmon-rearing rivers.  In the next fiscal year, another $13.45 million has been allocated for continued work on the Elwha project.  Thus far, the federal government has appropriated a total of $126.7 million for the project in the past several years.         

            The appropriations bill passed today as Congress completed work on the current session also included a substantial boost in funding for the National Park Service that will result in a direct five percent increase in the operations budgets of each National Park, Rep. Dicks said.   As the ranking Democratic member of the Interior Appropriations Subcommittee, Dicks worked with House and Senate leaders over the past few weeks to boost the overall National Park Service budget by $95 million over the previous year, with $75 million of that amount dedicated to individual park operations budgets. 

           The result builds on efforts that Rep. Dicks and other members of the Interior Subcommittee made this year to address the shortfall that has reduced staffing at Olympic National Park and other national parks and historic places around the nation.  In June, when the House considered the Interior funding bill, Rep. Dicks argued that an insufficient portion of the National Park Service budget was actually directed to the individual parks in order to maintain visitor services and to fund interpretive activities that citizens expect at all of the Park Service's 388 sites nationwide.  

            Later in the summer, after visits to all three of the national parks in the state of Washington, the congressman said he was committed to seeking a budget increase that would translate into a specific boost for the operation of each park, rather than for Park Service or Interior Department overhead.

            "This is a major step forward for park operations," Rep. Dicks said.  "We are committed to reversing the decline that has made it harder and harder for park superintendents to give visitors the high quality outdoor experience they expect," he added.   

            The spending bill also contained funded transportation programs, including another $1 million for the International Gateway project in Port Angeles in addition to $400,000 in bus funding for Clallam Transit.

           Another substantial increment of federal funding for research into the dissolved oxygen problem that is threatening fish populations in Hood Canal was also contained in the bill.  Research funding contained in two different portions of this legislation and in the previously- approved defense bill will bring to $2.8 million the total amount of federal funding directed to the problem in Hood Canal, Rep. Dicks said.  Included was $350,000 in the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey and $200,000 in the EPA's environmental management account, which will be added to $1.4 million in Navy research funding that was allocated in July for use in the current fiscal year.  In the previous year, a total of $850,000 was appropriated for research into the dissolved oxygen problem.

          The appropriations bill approved today also includes a special appropriation inserted recently by Rep. Dicks in order to increase seismic monitoring around Mount St. Helens as a result of the recent indications of increased volcanic activity.  The funds will be spent by the U.S. Geological Survey to expand and upgrade its capability to interpret seismic activity.

            The bill also funds two other efforts launched by Rep. Dicks in recent years in the Pacific Northwest -- a program to restore culverts that affect fish passage along streams and rivers, and a program of identifying hatchery raised salmon stocks in order to protect threatened and endangered species.  This "mass marking" program has been implemented in the past year, allowing hatchery fish to be visibly distinguished by clipping the small, unused adipose fin using automated machinery.


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