Current News

June 2008

Dosewallips Road Plan Threatens Ancient Trees and Critical Salmon Habitat: Road-to-Trail Option Not Considered
by Tim McNulty

In June, Olympic National Forest and the Federal Highway Administration released their Dosewallips Road Washout Project Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS). After years of study, two failed starts, and hundreds of pages of public comment, the agencies still refuse to consider the only sensible solution for the Dosewallips: convert the upper road to a recreational hiking, biking, and equestrian trail.

Instead, the DEIS offers three alternatives for rebuilding the washed-out road. Two (alternatives B and C) would construct a bypass road across a steep, wet, unstable hillside through a spectacular old-growth forest adjacent to the Buckhorn Wilderness. Road building costs would range from $2.5 to $3.75 million. A third approach, a bridge across the 500-foot washout (alternative D) would cost a staggering $8 million. (Alternative A is the no action alternative.) No preferred alternative was selected.

Olympic Park Associates, Olympic Forest Coalition, Conservation Northwest, and other conservation groups are protesting the action, charging that bypass road or bridge construction would be costly, environmentally destructive to critical salmon and wildlife habitat, and completely unnecessary.

The new, nearly mile-long road would cut a 6-1/2 to 7-acre swath through an exquisite grove of ancient forest, destroying dozens of old-growth trees, some reaching six feet in diameter. The area is a late-successional reserve and critical habitat for federally threatened northern spotted owls and marbled murrelets. It is in a riparian reserve and key watershed that provides habitat for federally listed fish.

According to the DEIS, all three road-building options would be in violation of the Northwest Forest Plan, the law that preserves old-growth forests and wildlife habitats in Northwest forests. The planned road construction would require up to five "amendments" to the plan.

For the public, a wonderful opportunity to restore the upper Dosewallips valley to a family-friendly recreation area for hiking, biking, horseback riding, and quiet camping in the absence of cars, pollution, and noise has been dismissed out of hand.

"Relocating the Dosewallips Road through some of the most spectacular old-growth forest in the east Olympics just doesn't make sense," says OPA president Donna Osseward. "Ensuring public access is a worthy goal, but destroying irreplaceable forest and putting federally threatened salmon and wildlife at risk to do it is unacceptable."

OPA and Olympic Forest Coalition (OFCO) plan to challenge the final decision. Bonnie Phillips, executive director of OFCO faults the agencies for ignoring public support for converting the road beyond the washout to a year-round recreational trail. "Conversion of the upper road to a family-friendly hiking, biking and equestrian trail is the only sensible solution for the Dosewallips. But it's a solution the Forest Service refuses to consider."

In the meantime, your comments are needed to persuade the Forest Service to abandon this flawed approach and reconsider converting the upper five miles of road to a non-motorized recreational trail. The deadline for comments is August 19. [See sidebar "What You Can Do.]

The Wrong Road in the Wrong Place

Problems with the Dosewallips Road began in January, 2002, when record floods swept away a 300-foot section of road ten miles west of Highway 101 at Brinnon. Repeated floods since then have nearly doubled the size of the washout. Prior to 2002, the road accessed two primitive campgrounds (the Elkhorn campground in Olympic National Forest and the Dosewallips campground in Olympic National Park) as well as two park trail heads. The park campground and trail heads can now be reached by a scenic five mile hike along the river. The Forest Service campground is less than a mile past the washout.

Two earlier Forest Service plans to rebuild the road were challenged by OPA and other conservation groups and individuals and were withdrawn. But in the six years since the washout, no effort has been made by the agencies to establish parking, horse unloading, or camping facilities downstream from the washout. OPA urged that the current plan consider such an approach, similar to the solution adopted for the frequently flooded Carbon River Road in Mount Rainier National Park. Instead, the Forest Service narrowly defined the "purpose and need" of the proposed action to rule out this common-sense approach.

Federally listed Puget Sound chinook salmon are known to spawn in the area, and the cut slope exposed by the river has been identified as a significant source of spawning gravel for chinook. Federally listed Puget Sound steelhead, and Hood Canal chum are also present in the Dosewallips. Bulldozing a new road across steep, unstable slopes poses a long-term threat to salmon habitat in the river. Frequent flooding in recent years compounds the threat.

"This road is an artifact of the 1930's," says Bonnie Phillips. "Climate change and continuing floods are a fact of life now. Forest service officials have an opportunity to plan for meaningful, long-term recreational use for this spectacular valley. Instead, they remain stuck in the past."

June 2008

Olympic National Park General Management Plan Falls Short
by Tim McNulty

Olympic National Park released its final general management plan (GMP) in March. Two volumes, 900 pages, and seven years in the making, it will guide park management for the next twenty years. The GMP takes some positive steps toward ecosystem protection. But despite the urging of conservationists, it tends to be overly focused on motorized use and development and presents a timid approach to preserving the wilderness integrity of this world-class park.

First the good news. "No take" intertidal reserves are recommended for sensitive sections of the coastal area, adding extra protections to about one-third of the Olympic coast.

Boundary expansions are recommended for three areas adjoining the park: Lyre River at Lake Crescent, Ozette Lake watershed, and the Queets River corridor (these areas would not be added to the park until purchased from willing sellers).

Wilderness eligibility studies are recommended for Ozette Lake, the north slope of Lake Crescent, and other areas. And Kalaloch Lodge and highway 101 will be moved away from the coastal erosion zone. Other worthwhile recommendations include increased interpretive and educational programs and development of accessible, frontcountry trails.

On the other hand, a number of initiatives recommended by OPA and other conservation organizations were not included in the final plan.

Park additions are much smaller than conservationist recommendations, amounting to less than a quarter of the total acreage. No recommendation was made for wolf reintroduction, and scant mention made of non-native mountain goats.

None of the park's spectacular wild rivers were recommended for Wild and Scenic designation (though a future evaluation is promised), and no river protection zones were instituted. The Hoh, Queets, and Quinault rivers were identified for possible river restoration, but road and visitor center relocation may include changing wilderness boundaries.

All park roads are to be maintained regardless of impacts, including year-round use of the Quinault loop (which requires continued bulldozing of Finley Creek) and seasonal access to the Dosewallips (involving Forest Service road construction through a magnificent old-growth grove).

The plan expands front-country development zones, often into adjacent old-growth and floodplain forests (though an objectionable 250-site campground limit was cut back). Campground expansions are planned for the Elwha, Sol Duc, and Ozette areas (OPA and others recommend new developments be placed outside the park).

Lastly, the plan does little to strengthen the park's checkered approach to wilderness management. No wilderness plan is included (though one is promised...again). References are made to OPA's successful wilderness suit against the park service, and the final plan vows to protect wilderness character.

But the same myopic vision that brought the park to federal court prevails in the plan. In the absence of a wilderness management plan, forty-four structures and eight "cultural landscapes" are to be maintained in park wilderness. Among the latter are several old homestead fields and the historic "U.S. Forest Service Trail System" -- presumably all 700-plus miles of it.

In spite of some positive steps and obvious concessions to conservationists' concerns, the final GMP continues to shortchange ecosystem restoration and compromise wilderness character. It is a poor guide for this planetary resource into the 21st century.

The plan can be viewed on the NPS planning website: http://parkplanning.nps.gov. Following the links to Olympic.

February 2008

Fishers Return to Olympic National Park
by Tim McNulty

On a cold, clear Sunday in late January, Olympic National Park reached a milestone. Eleven fishers scampered out of their carrying pens and into the snowy forests of the Elwha and Morse Creek valleys. The release marked the culmination of years of research, planning and coordination among agency biologists and conservation organizations. Biologists Jeff Lewis from the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, and Patti Happe from Olympic National Park managed the project. Staff from their agencies and Olympic National Forest also cooperated. Non-profits Conservation Northwest and Washington National Parks Fund contributed funding. And OPA and other conservation groups across the state rallied support (see "Fisher to Return to Olympic National Park" in the Fall, 2007 Voice and "Return of the Fisher" in the Winter, 2006 Voice).

Over the next three years up to 100 fishers will be restored to Olympic forests from healthy populations in British Columbia. They will be reintroduced to their former habitats from the Elwha west to the Quinault valleys. When they settle in and successfully reproduce, they will bring the spectacular wilderness of Olympic National Park an important step closer to ecological wholeness. The only remaining wildlife species still missing from the Olympics is the wolf.

Fishers (martes pennanti) are sleek, cat-size hunters of the lowland forest. They were once fairly common throughout the Northwest, but their lustrous, sable-like fur proved too valuable on the commercial market. As a result, fishers were all but wiped out by commercial trapping on the Olympic Peninsula and throughout much of the West by the 1950s. Intensive clearcutting of the lowland forest sealed their fate. By the end of the 20th century, only a few isolated populations remained on the West Coast. The last recorded fisher in the Olympics was trapped at Lilliwaup Swamp in 1969.

A 2004 feasibility study by Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife found that Olympic Park forests provided the best habitat for restoring fishers to Washington, where they are listed as a state endangered splices. In 2006, the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife and Olympic National Park proposed to reintroduce fishers into park forests. The plan was met with popular support, and final approval came in November of 2007.

The first animals were trapped north of Williams Lake in British Columbia. They underwent medical exams and were fitted with radio collars and transmitters for monitoring. The eleven were released at remote sites in the Elwha River and Morse Creek valleys in January.

(Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife photo)

Former Olympic National Park wildlife biologist and OPA trustee Bruce Moorhead welcomes the reintroduction. "We know from Yellowstone the positive affects a restored predator can have on the long-term health of a natural system," he said. "So putting a major species back into the Olympics is a significant step in restoring this ecosystem."

Members of the Stevens Middle School Animal Club helped release three of the animals at Altaire Campground along the Elwha River. The fishers appeared well cared for: dark, sleek and healthy as they bolted from their plywood pens into the surrounding old-growth forest. Cameras flashed, but they didn't look back.

Stevens Middle School student Kelsey Coffman, who helped with the release, captured the spirit of the day. "This is such a great honor," she said. "It's like they're coming home."

For more information on returning fishers to Olympic, go to: http://www.nps.gov/olym/parknews/upload/FisherQ&A%20EA.pdf