Washington taxpayers paid nearly $700,000 for boulders to deter return to encampments

If you’ve driven along certain stretches of Washington freeways, you may have noticed some recent additions on the side of the road.

Those additions — hundreds of large boulders at sites of former encampments — have so far cost the state nearly $700,000, according to Kris Abrudan, communications director for the Washington State Department of Transportation.

A majority of that total was spent at a former encampment at Sleater Kinney Road and Interstate 5 in Olympia for the purchase and placement of boulders. The cost totaled $643,000.

The boulders are used to deter individuals from returning to roadside encampments that have been cleared as part of Democratic Gov. Jay Inslee’s Rights-of-Way Safety Initiative, which aims to “transition persons residing on state-owned rights of way to safer housing opportunities, with an emphasis on permanent housing solutions,” according to the Washington State Department of Commerce website.

Abrudan said WSDOT “gives a lot of thought to our use of more expensive encampment deterrent tools like boulders.”

She added that boulders have only been used at three of the 33 Encampment Resolution Program sites.

“In all three cases, there have been encampment challenges on and off for years,” Abrudan explained in an email. “Sleater Kinney and Wheeler combined had over 200 people living on state right of way in close proximity to I-5. The risk of re-encampment and associated exponential growth and history of encampments combined with appropriate topography to support boulders ultimately drove the decision for use at these select sites.”

The funding for the boulders comes from maintenance provisos within the capital budget.

“It’s important to note that WSDOT’s first action once a site is vacant is to take a close look at the site, do trash mitigation and other clean-up tasks along with fence repair and vegetation management to increase visibility for monitoring purposes,” Abrudan said. “Many sites don’t require additional site modifications beyond this, but for those that do, boulders are one tool in the toolbox for further site modification and only appropriate for certain sites depending on the topography, need for future ingress and egress to the site, etc.”

An additional $20,000 will be spent in coming months for boulder purchase and placement at various former encampments near Vancouver, Abrudan said. So far $7,000 has been allocated to boulder placement and purchase in the southwest region.

WSDOT has five other regions in addition to the southwest region including the Olympic region, northwest region, south central region, north central region and the eastern region.

More than $671,000 was spent on boulders in Thurston County in the Olympic region, which encompasses the area of the former encampment at Sleater Kinney. Wheeler and Lilly Road off I-5 were two other Right of Way Safety Initiative sites in the region, but the largest portion of boulders were placed at Sleater Kinney.

Washington Rock in Kapowsin supplied the boulders for the Sleater Kinney encampment, Abrudan said.

More than $19,000 was also spent on boulder placement at a former encampment in Wenatchee, located in the north central region. Abrudan said for that encampment, rock sourcing was internal so the total cost represents hauling, labor and “some limited trash mitigation as well.”

The northwest, south central and eastern regions had no recent expenditures for boulders, Abrudan noted.

WSDOT collaborates with the Washington state Department of Commerce and the Washington State Patrol as well as cities, counties and non-profits for the Rights-of-Way Safety Initiative, according to the DOC website.

In a news conference Thursday, Inslee was asked by McClatchy if he considered the amount of funding for the boulders a good investment.

“I really wish we could provide housing and safe corridors for zero dollars, I really do, but that’s just not the reality,” Inslee said.

He added that neighbors to the encampments are appreciative of the efforts to prevent encampments from springing back up once they are cleared.

“And the neighbors deserve to have protection so that they don’t have these homeless encampments come right back after we get people into housing and remove them,” he said. “So these are by and large good investments.”

The governor said he was pleased to see the boulders because encampments are not good for unhoused people, and because it’s “not good” for the community to see the “squalor” and “the sense of disorder and anxiety that they cause.”

But others aren’t so sure the investment is worthwhile.

Rep. Andrew Barkis, R-Olympia, is a ranking minority member on the House Transportation Committee.

In a phone interview with McClatchy, Barkis said he believes that if the state would have prevented the encampments from growing in the first place, they wouldn’t be in the position they are now to have to use so many resources.

He said the Legislature moved to fund an earlier rights-of-way initiative in Seattle, Tacoma and other parts of the state for mitigation, removal of individuals from encampments and connecting those individuals to services. The governor later caught onto the idea, Barkis added.

“I feel it’s unfortunate that we have to spend precious resources — $700,000 — to go a long way to fix guardrails, and add safety improvements along the highways,” he said.

Barkis also expressed concern about the boulders themselves rolling onto the interstate.

“I just think we need to continue to move people off of the rights-of-ways, enforce the laws, and keep them cleaned up,” he said.

In December, Inslee requested an additional $100 million in funding for the Rapid Housing Acquisition Fund to obtain more housing resources for the Rights-of-Way Safety Initiative.