Keynote: Dan Evans, Champion of Olympic Wilderness, former Governor and U.S. Senator
Guest Speaker: Michael Frome, Esteemed author, Regreening the National Parks
Special Guest: David Morris, Superintendent, Olympic National Park

Olympic Park Associates came into being fifty years ago to successfully oppose the elimination of west side forests from Olympic National Park. Starting with founders Irving M. Clark, Sr., and John Osseward, Olympic Park Associates remains dedicated to preserving the "wilderness integrity" of both Olympic National Park and areas of the Olympic National Forest.

To honor the accomplishments of individuals active in Olympic Park Associates' history, a 50th Anniversary dinner will be held on Saturday, November 7 and the public is invited. Tickets are $25.00 and payment should be mailed to Olympic Park Associates, 2433 Del Campo Drive, Everett, WA, 98208 by October 31, 1998.

About the Speakers:

Dan Evans, first as Governor and then as U.S. Senator, championed 1984 Washington Wilderness Act, which designated Wilderness in some of our National Forests, and later the 1988 National Parks Wilderness Bill. He has shepherded legislation for protection of park resources and for numerous favorable boundary adjustments of Olympic National Park, including the addition of Point of the Arches and Shi Shi Beach (the last seven miles of roadless coast), the extension of the Park's coastal strip to extreme low tide, and the protection to the off shore rocks and islands.

Dan Evans remains a steadfast backpacker and is an OPA member.

Michael Frome is considered by many to be the Dean of American conservation writing. He has rallied the nation to support wilderness with his compelling prose, in magazines, newspapers and, most of all, in his books. The important ones are: The Battle for the Wilderness; Regreening the National Parks, and Chronicling the West: Thirty Years of Environmental Writing.

These books will be available at the dinner for signing and purchasing, if you wish.

David Morris has shown outstanding leadership in the National Park Service with his recent strong stand banning jetskis from Lake Crescent.

Morris will share some of his perspectives about his years as Superintendent of Olympic National Park.

Please join in celebrating what one small conservation organization has been able to accomplish over the past 50 years -- and will continue to do, with your help, to protect and preserve the wilderness integrity of the Olympics.

Copies of the 50th Anniversary Edition of the Voice of the Wild Olympics are still available.

This 128-page, photo-illustrated anthology is a history of Olympic Park Associates, their battles and victories, as told by the survivors themselves. The book is a "good read," as well as a testament to the power of citizen activism and a valuable learning tool for anyone interested or involved in conservation issues.

New members receive a free copy.

Olympic National Park officials have released the Final Management Plan/Environmental Impact Statement for Lake Crescent. The highlight of the plan is an outright ban on personal watercraft (PWCs, aka "jet skis"). Unfortunately the rest of the plan is mediocre at best.

The biggest surprise is the banning of PWCs on the lake. The Draft plan outlined a series of zoning options for PWCs, but not a total ban. Fortunately, your voice was heard loud and clear over the endless whine of PWC advocates. Supt. David Morris should be commended for hearing us out and boldly changing course by announcing the ban, which is effective Oct. 1st.

A Strong Stand Based on NPS Mandate

A growing body of evidence is revealing both the environmental and safety hazards that PWCs pose on our waterways, prompting more and more jurisdictions to ban or limit their use in order to safeguard natural resources and protect visitor safety.

But the biggest issue surrounding PWCs on Lake Crescent, or on any National Park or Monument waterway, is incompatibility with National Park principles. Our park units have deservedly been held to the highest standards, including use of the Army to protect Yellowstone National Park's natural features from vandalism and its wildlife from poachers in 1886. As stated in the plan:

"The superintendent is mandated by law to protect park resources, 'Compatible with the protection of park resources and values' means that where conflict exists between visitor use and resource protection, protection of the resource must come first. [National Parks] cannot be all things to all people; all uses cannot be accommodated."

Instead, the 'use and enjoyment' of our parks should be on the park's terms, not ours, so as to ensure the 'conservation of the scenery and wildlife therein' for all time.

Thanks for Public Support

Our thanks to you for taking the time to express your concerns and experiences with PWCs on the lake to Olympic National Park officials. We salute Supt. Morris and his staff for making this difficult decision for the betterment of park resources and the overall improvement of the visitor experience.

Regrettably, the rest of the Lake Crescent management plan lacks that same bold vision for future management of the lake. In general, it's more of the same: more facilities, more parking, more construction, more infrastructure to maintain. Basically, it is accommodating the anticipated increase in lake visitation over the life of the plan.

Weaknesses in Plan

Lacking are the necessary background studies to determine what the cumulative impacts these developments will have on the lake environs. These are deferred until later when narrowly focused, site-specific Environmental Assessments will be conducted regarding the planned development.

This is a chronic "bass-ackwards" approach to developing management plans in our parks. For example, the most recent Draft General Management Plan (GMP) for Glacier National Park admits that park staff honestly do not know how many grizzly bears are in the park and "no reliable estimate is currently available... The success of bear conservation in Glacier National Park can not be evaluated without reliable information on population trends." This is not a very convincing argument that the actions proposed in their GMP will benefit grizzly bear recovery. The failure to do the necessary homework up front results in insufficient data on which to base informed, and educated, management decisions. We may suffer the same fate at Lake Crescent.

But not all news is bad. In an effort to protect rare aquatic plants, the buoyed swimming area proposed at Bovee Meadows has been dropped. Also shelved are the plans to develop backcountry campsites along the Spruce Railroad Trail. Gone is the plan to investigate the feasibility of building a convention facility at Lake Crescent Lodge, but still in the plan is a feasibility study for a 10% increase in accommodations. At the urging of the Friends of Lake Crescent, the feasibility of adding tent camping sites at La Poel was added. In fact, an entirely new Alternative (E) was added which was submitted by the Friends of Lake Crescent.

Other major features of the plan are listed below.

The plan also includes the desire to resume operation a tour boat on the lake - something Olympic Park Associates continues to oppose.

As stated, this is not exactly a visionary document, but more like a reaffirmation of traditional uses. Lake Crescent remains a gem on the Olympic Peninsula and this plan still has many positive attributes that will retain its majestic charm. Anyone who has driven or walked along its shores in the early morning hours, with wisps of fog over the lake and gazed upon the reflection of the trees and mountains in its glass-like stillness, will still, somewhat more quietly, revel in what Lake Crescent has to offer.

In a pro-jet-ski gesture that dumb founded conservationists, the Clallam County Board of Commissioners has notified Olympic National Park of the county's desire to take over management of Lake Crescent.

Commissioner Phil Kitchel (R. Forks) is unhappy with the park's recent decision to ban jet-skis on the lake. Kitchel, who spent his entire first term of office in a hapless battle to take over management of the state's forestlands in the county, cited an 1896 law for wagon road rights-of-way as justification for annexation of the lake. Paved-earth advocates in Alaska and Utah are currently using this ancient statute to attempt to push highways through wilderness areas and wildlife refuges, but Commissioner Kitchel's application of it to jet-skis on Lake Crescent is mystifying.

Kitchel said he is responding to a number of residents on nearby Lake Sutherland who are concerned that the jet-ski ban on Lake Crescent will mean more jet-skis (and increased safety hazards) on their already overcrowded lake. It's a valid concern, and one the county commissioners could easily address by regulating jet-ski use on Lake Sutherland. Unlike Lake Crescent, it is entirely within the county's jurisdiction.

Olympic National Park Superintendent David Morris, in a letter in response to the commissioners, gently suggested that they have no case. And an August 13 editorial in the Peninsula Daily News pronounced the proposal "ridiculous" and "bizarre".

That Commissioner Kitchel prefers to sidestep his responsibility to govern and in stead tilt his lance to Big Government no doubt plays well with some of his constituents in Forks. However, like many of his anti-government campaigns, it does nothing to address a growing problem.

Says Kitchel, who is up for reelection this fall, "The commissioners need to determine if the Park has the authority to regulate the lake."

A more appropriate line of inquiry might be, "Who elected this guy?"

Removal of the Elwha dams inched closer to reality on September 9 with the release of $18.5 million for removal of the Elwha dams.

The Interior Subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee released a total of $191 million in maintenance and land acquisition funds, which previously had been approved by Congress and the President. Federal funding that has been earmarked to acquire the Elwha and Glines Canyon Dams now totals $29.5 million.

On the Senate side, the corresponding Interior appropriations bill is still pending. Senator Gorton has opposed spending for removal of the Elwha dams unless the administration agrees to protect a long list of dams on the Columbia and Snake River from removal. Gorton has included such language in a rider attached to the Senate version of the Interior appropriations bill.

Senator Max Baucus has said he will offer an amendment to remove Gorton's language and 7 other anti-conservation riders from the Senate bill.

Update: Sen. Gorton has blocked any and all efforts to release the $22 million authorized by Congress for removal of the Elwha Dam. Letters of outrage directed to Sen. Gorton's office are appropriate.

In addition to OPA 's 50th, we hope you will celebrate the following:

10th Anniversary Washington National Parks Wilderness Act of 1988

Marking the Tenth anniversary of the signing of the Washington National Parks Wilderness Act of 1988, the National Park Service is sponsoring a day-long celebration in Seattle at REI.

Date: Saturday, November 14
Place: REI Auditorium, Seattle Store.
Time: 9 a.m. until 4:15 p.m.
Coffee and refreshments will be available.

The theme of the day is the challenge to protect Wilderness for the broad spectrum of American society in the face of growing population pressure.

Panel discussions and speakers will include Dan Evans, former Governor and U.S. Senator; Bob Stanton, Director of the National Park Service; and John Reynolds, NPS Regional Director. An inspirational video will be shown sponsored by the Mount Rainier North Cascades Olympic Fund.

For further information, contact:

Olympic National Park, 360-452-4501
National Park Service, Seattle, 206-220-4015

Olympic Park Institute Celebrates Its 10th Anniversary

On September 26, Olympic Park Institute (OPI) celebrated its 10th anniversary as a residential environmental institute at Rosemary Inn at Lake Crescent in Olympic National Park.

The day was filled with nature crafts, guided nature walks, learning games, music, and storytelling. Some of OPI's most popular programs for adults and young people were offered free during the day-long event. Musicians performed throughout the day as scientists, writers, and Native American storytellers shared some of the mysteries of Olympic National Park.

The day came to a close with a traditional salmon bake with Jamestown S ' Klallam elder Elaine Grinnell.

OPA congratulates our friends at Olympic Park Institute on their first ten years of outstanding environmental education. OPI hosts residential field science programs, adult and family field seminars, elderhostel programs, and conferences for more than 5,000 participants each year. We wish them continued success.

For a copy of the Institute's catalogue of Field Seminars for 1999, contact:

Olympic Park Institute
111 Barnes Point Road
Port Angeles, WA 98363
Phone 360-928-3720

President Franklin Roosevelt signed the bill that established Olympic National Park on June 29, 1938.

The park will doubtless receive a host of formal sixtieth birthday congratulations in the coming days.

However, I would like to take this opportunity to wish the park happy birthday on a personal level. I would also like to thank past politicians and current and past park staff for making Olympic National Park the gem of the Pacific Northwest.

Theodore Roosevelt deserves high praise for setting aside the precursor to the park, Mount Olympus National Monument, in 1909, largely to protect dwindling Roosevelt elk herds.

Elk would still roam the Olympics today if Roosevelt had not protected the herds, but they would almost certainly be the "reintroduced" Roosevelt/Rocky Mountain crosses found at Mount St. Helens and the Willapa Hills, not true Roosevelt elk.

I would also like to thank Franklin Roosevelt for including the upper sections of the rain forest valleys within the park.

"A diverse network of large and small streams flowed through those old-growth forests and supported abundant populations of Pacific salmon," McHenry, Lichatowich and Kowalski-Hagaman wrote in Status of Pacific Salmon and their Habitats on the Olympic Peninsula, Washington. "Parts of those streams, primarily portions of the largest systems (Sol Duc, Bogachiel, Hoh and Queets rivers) were ultimately included in the boundaries of Olympic National Park. Those areas are now refuge for some species, particularly steelhead and chinook salmon.

As an outdoor writer, I have had a lot of contact with Olympic National Park staff over the years. I can honestly say that they are the most professional, courteous and enthusiastic public employees I know. I appreciate all of their help.

Most of all, however, I simply want to thank the park for some of the most memorable experiences of my life.

I remember an October day on the Hoh. I crawled out of my tent at dawn, gathered my camera and fishing rod and headed up the trail into foggy mist.

I had hiked less than a mile when I smelled that unmistakable "lathered-up-horse" aroma of elk. I slowed my pace and got my camera out of its bag.

Suddenly, a six-point bull was standing along the edge of the trail, a dozen feet from me. We stared at each other and I said some thing inane like, "Hi there, buddy." as I raised my camera.

I knew I was going to have to use a flash, but I was uneasy about how a rutting elk would react to my popping off a light in its face. I was working on a magazine article about elk at the time, though, and, perhaps foolishly, I took the shot.

The elk didn't seem especially perturbed, so I took several more, then continued hiking. Two hours later, just as the sun burned off the last of the fog, I caught a 10-pound wild summer run steelhead.

Six months after than, the elk photo was given a one and one-third page spread in the magazine.

I also remember a brilliant September day on the coastal strip. I had hiked from the parking lot at Rialto Beach to the Hole-in-the-Wall, then continued north.

As I approached Ellen Creek, I noticed a handful of very large birds crashing into the waves off the creek mouth.

"They act like pelicans," I remember thinking. I had become familiar with brown pelicans when I lived in Key West years before, but I had no idea they appeared along the Olympic coast.

They were indeed pelicans, and I spend a half-hour watching the birds dive for smelt.

Perhaps my fondest memory is of yet another autumn day, this one at Upper Lena Lake, on the opposite side of the park.

My wife, Eli, and I had just begun to date, and this was our first backpacking trip together. Between us, we owned four tents (three of them were hers) and six stoves (none of which worked very well), but we had no idea how we would function as hiking partners. It turned out that we both hiked exactly the same way - slow and steady, taking time to savor the experience. We were the only people on the lake that day. There was fresh snow on Mount Bretherton. The heather on the lower slopes was aflame, and although nearly all of the mountain flowers were gone, we found two surviving lupine. It was a glorious day - like so many others in Olympic National Park.

In June, Senator Gorton announced that he would no longer support the study for the reintroduction of wolves into Olympic National Park. Last year Congress provided $300,000 for a feasibility study for bringing wolves back to the Olympics. Though the study will not be complete until sometime next year, Senator Gorton has obviously heard enough.

"Within the past year, I have listened to the concerns of local communities and come to the conclusion that the people of the peninsula are not in favor of the reintroduction of wolves to Olympic National Park," Gorton told the Associated Press. The City of Forks weighed in solidly against the reintroduction earlier this year. Like Forks' city fathers, Gorton saw no need to review the forthcoming quarter-of-a-million-dollar study, or to honestly survey a majority of the peninsula's residents.

That's too bad. A Washington State University survey that took place prior to the successful reintroductions at Yellowstone showed that 48 percent of the respondents favored returning wolves to the Olympics.

A clearer reflection of the peninsula's attitudes was expressed in an editorial in the Peninsula Daily News following Gorton's announcement. "Science should prevail over Gorton's political posturing," read the editorial page headline in the June 30 edition. "Senator Slade Gorton is off base in refusing to wait for a scientific look at the possibility of returning wolves to Olympic National Park," the editors wrote.

"Gorton has obviously been listening to the squeaky wheels, the ones who prefer development to nature and those who still work out of fear of the Big Bad Wolf. Gorton is playing ugly politics, too, in trying to pit support for the timber industry against a study on the reintroduction of wolves. There is clearly no link."

Fortunately, there may be enough money allocated from last year's budget to complete the study, and Congressman Norm Dicks, who represents the peninsula, remains a strong advocate for restoring wolves to the Olympics.

"The government erred," Dicks told wolf supporters last year when discussing the government's role in the elimination of wolves from the Peninsula. "We have a real responsibility to repair that wrong."

Unfortunately, repairing ecological wrongs -- be they wolf extirpation, the Elwha dams, the loss of wild salmon runs, or the destruction of old-growth forests -- do not appear to be worthy of our senior senator's attention. Gorton continues to stonewall efforts to remove the Elwha dams even though money for removal is allocated in the administration's budget. Now he lends his ecological wisdom to the wolf debate. But wolf recovery in Yellowstone took place over the howls of local politicians. With enough popular support, wolves will return to the Olympics as well.