Watching Our Water Ways

Despite millions of dollars spent on research in Hood Canal, the precise causes of low-oxygen problems in Southern Hood Canal are still not fully understood, according to a report released this week by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Washington Department of Ecology.

News articles about the report have created some confusion, and I’ll get to that in a moment.

As I reported in Tuesday’s Kitsap Sun, research has not proven that nitrogen from human sources is responsible for a decline in oxygen levels greater than 0.2 milligrams per liter anywhere in Hood Canal. That number is important, because it is the regulatory threshold for action under the Clean Water Act.

Mindy Roberts, one of the authors of the report, told me that scientists who have worked on the low-oxygen problem have gained an appreciation for Hood Canal’s exceedingly complex physical and biological systems. So far, they have not come to consensus about how much human inputs of nitrogen contribute to the low-oxygen problems in Lower Hood Canal.

The report, which examined the complexity and scientific uncertainty about these systems, seems to have generated some confusion, even among news reporters. I think it is important to understand two fundamental issues:

1. The deep main channel of Hood Canal is almost like a separate body of water from Lower Hood Canal (also called Lynch Cove in some reports). This area is generally defined as the waters between Sisters Point and Belfair. Because Lower Hood Canal does not flush well, low-oxygen conditions there are an ongoing and very serious problem.

2. Fish kills around Hoodsport cannot be equated or even closely correlated with the low-oxygen conditions in Lower Hood Canal. The cause of these fish kills was not well understood a decade ago, but now researchers generally agree that heavy seawater coming in from the ocean pushes up a layer of low-oxygen water. When winds from the south blow away the surface waters, the low-oxygen water rises to the surface, leaving fish no place to go.

I’m not aware that researchers were blaming nitrogen from septic systems for the massive episodic fish kills, as Craig Welch reports in the Seattle Times. At least in recent years, most researchers have understood that this was largely a natural phenomenon and that human sources of nitrogen played a small role, if any, during a fish kill.

The question still being debated is how much (or how little) humans contribute to the low-oxygen level in the water that is pushed to the surface during a fish kill and whether there is a significant flow of low-oxygen water out of Lower Hood Canal, where oxygen conditions are often deadly at the bottom.

The new report, which was reviewed by experts from across the country, concludes that fish kills can be explained fully without considering any human sources of nitrogen. Evidence that low-oxygen water flows out of Lower Hood Canal in the fall is weak, the report says, though it remains a subject of some debate.

“We have not demonstrated that mechanism to their satisfaction,” Jan Newton of the Hood Canal Dissolved Oxygen Program told me in an interview. “We never said it caused the fish kill, only that it can reduce the oxygen level below what it was. In some years, it wouldn’t matter, but in some years it would make it worse.”

A cover letter (PDF 83 kb) to the EPA/Ecology reports includes this:

“While the draft report concludes that although human-caused pollution does not cause or contribute to the fish kills near Hoodsport, our agencies strongly support additional protections to ensure that nitrogen and bacteria loadings from human development are minimized.

“Water quality concerns extend beyond low dissolved oxygen and include bacteria and other pathogens that limit shellfish health. Overall, human impacts to Hood Canal water quality vary from place to place and at different times of year. Hood Canal is a very sensitive water body and people living in the watershed should continue their efforts to minimize human sources of pollution.”

One of the most confounding factors is the large amount of nitrogen born by ocean water that flows along the bottom of Hood Canal. An unresolved but critical questions is: How much of that nitrogen reaches the surface layer, where it can trigger plankton growth in the presence of sunlight?

Plankton growth is a major factor in the decline of oxygen levels, because plankton eventually die and decay, consuming oxygen in the process.

Human sources of nitrogen often enter Hood Canal at the surface, but researchers disagree on how much of the low-oxygen problem can be attributed to heavy seawater that reaches the sunny euphotic zone near the surface.

Here are the principal findings in the EPA/Ecology report, “Review and Synthesis of Available Information to Estimate Human Impacts to Dissolved Oxygen in Hood Canal” (PDF 3.8 mb).

(more…)

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Nobody doubts the passion that Gov. Chris Gregoire holds for Puget Sound or that she was instrumental in setting up the Puget Sound Partnership, which has charted a course for restoration.

But how will the work to protect Puget Sound proceed under a new governor?

Gov. Chris Gregoire (right) praises a new environmental mitigation program during a tour of Hood Canal aboard the Coast Guard cutter Sea Devil. Looking on are Martha Kongsgaard (left), chairwoman of the Puget Sound Leadership Council, and Gail Terzi, mitigation program manager with Seattle District Army Corps of Engineers.
Kitsap Sun photo by Christopher Dunagan

It’s an issue that has not been discussed much in the ongoing governor’s race. (I need to question the candidates on this issue.) But I had a chance yesterday to chat with the governor over coffee (she had tea) in the galley of the Coast Guard cutter Sea Devil on the way to Dabob Bay.

“I created it, so the next governor can uncreate it,” Gregoire told me simply, a comment I reported in today’s Kitsap Sun.

Still, she said, the partnership fills a need in coordinating the work of many government agencies, businesses and private groups. The effort has increased awareness and provided accountability needed to bring restoration dollars to the region. She seemed to be saying that whatever management structure is used, coordination will remain essential to the effort.

Gregoire filled me in on a story I had never heard before, one she later repeated for the 15 or so visitors on the boat ride across Hood Canal. It was about how the Puget Sound Partnership grew from a spark of an idea that erupted over a lunch with U.S. Rep. Norm Dicks.

“We were excited and got quite loud, as you can imagine with Norm Dicks,” she said. “It was quite a shouting match, and everyone in the restaurant was watching us.”

After that lunch, Gregoire called on Bill Ruckelshaus, former director of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, to head a study commission leading up to formation of the Puget Sound Partnership, as I reported in today’s story.

Both Gregoire and Dicks will leave office at the end of the year, and the governor says she is ready to pass the baton to others.

The reason for yesterday’s boat ride was to celebrate a new in-lieu-fee mitigation program for Hood Canal, which could be a model for other parts of Puget Sound and, as some suggested yesterday, for the entire nation.

The idea is that developers would pay a flat fee rather than construct a mitigation project on their own. Money could be pooled, if necessary, to promote significant long-term ecological protections.

The Navy is expected to jump-start the effort with several million dollars for mitigation of damage from its proposed $715-million explosives handling wharf to service submarines at Bangor on Hood Canal.

Rather than rehash all the work that has gone into fashioning this rare mitigation program, I’ll refer you to my stories and other sources. One thing to note is that the mitigation plan — outlined in a document called an “instrument” — includes a complex accounting system to keep track of the money as well as ecological debits and credits. It’s all geared to ensure that the environmental damage from development is fully compensated in ecological functions.

Here are some links for further reading:

May 9, 2011: Hood Canal council could get millions from Navy for mitigation projects

Sept. 1, 2011: Mitigation program could work for counties

May 10, 2012: Navy selects builders for second explosives handling wharf

May 18, 2012: Second explosives handling wharf gets final approval

June 1, 2012: Hood Canal council OKs program to handle federal restoration money

July 6, 2012: New mitigation program approved for Hood Canal

July 18, 2012: Governor praises Hood Canal mitigation program

Documents related to the in-lieu-fee program can be found on the website of the Hood Canal Coordinating Council.

A story related to mitigation at the proposed Bangor wharf involves compensation to area tribes for the loss of certain treaty-protected fish and shellfish resources. The story, “Navy to pay $9 million to tribes in mitigation for wharf project,” has generated considerable reader comments (134), mainly about tribal rights.

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The Union River near Belfair — the last estuary you come to when venturing into Hood Canal — slaps us in the face with an enigma.

The Union River flows into the very end of Hood Canal near Belfair. The red outline is part of the Pacific Northwest Salmon Center.

For the moment, I can’t do much more than pose some perplexing questions. But I get the feeling that if we could get the answers, we would understand more about salmon recovery in Lower Hood Canal and possibly other places as well.

The Union River also highlights the customary finger-pointing as to why certain stocks of salmon declined in the first place and what it will take to bring them back. Of the four H’s — harvest, habitat, hatcheries and hydro — the greatest finger-pointing goes on between harvest and habitat.

Let’s take Hood Canal summer chum and focus on the Union River, which was the subject of a story I wrote for Monday’s Kitsap Sun.

First, why did summer chum go extinct in the Dewatto and Tahuya rivers — the closest rivers to the Union — while maintaining a viable population in the Union?

(more…)

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After years of hearing bits and pieces about an Army Corps of Engineers investigation of the Skokomish River ecosystem, it seems that things are now moving toward work on a variety of projects. Many are of the type and scale that one would associate with the corps.

The public will get its first glance at 40 or so potential projects during an open house and slide show next Thursday beginning at 5 p.m. at the Mason County Public Works Building, 100 West Public Works Drive in Shelton. Review the news release (PDF 44 kb) on the event.

The Skokomish Watershed Action Team (SWAT) surveys an area where the Skokomish River has wiped out all vegetation and left a massive gravel bar.
Photo by Steve Zugschwerdt

The 40 or so projects to be presented at next week’s meeting are only at a conceptual stage. They must undergo further feasibility studies and cost analyses. A draft feasibility report and environmental impact statement are scheduled for release in August 2013.

As I mentioned in January, the corps is no longer focused on controlling flooding in the Skokomish Valley. Still, much of the ecosystem-restoration work could provide some flood relief. See Kitsap Sun, Jan. 22, and Water Ways, Jan. 25.

Jessie Winkler, project manager for the Army Corps of Engineers, told me in January:

“Clearly, flooding is a problem in the basin. But because of limited residential and commercial activity, it would be very difficult to justify a flood-control project. In order to be justified as a federal project, the economic benefits must be greater than the cost.”

Here are some of the preliminary projects to be described at next week’s meeting:

• Install aeration or oxygenation system in Annas Bay to reduce the dissolved oxygen problem
• Add a cool water diversion to Annas Bay to improve water quality
• Restore eelgrass beds in Hood Canal west of the river’s delta
• Restore oyster beds in Hood Canal within the delta area
• Remove additional roads and levies in the lower flood plain and delta
• Relocate West Valley Road
• Widen Highway 101 bridge
• Widen Highway 106 bridge
• Reconnect wetland at River Road
• Modify Agency Road to improve flow conditions
• Rehabilitate channel for Skabob Creek
• Address levee and side channels on Hunter and Bourgault farms
• Address car body levee and improve channel for lower Weaver Creek
• Reconnect Weaver Creek side channel
• Setback the Grange dike
• Remove Hunter Creek blockage
• Install a sediment trap after dredging the main channel downstream of Vance Creek
• Reconfigure main channel upstream of Vance Creek
• Reconnect Sunnyside channel
• Remove or setback levees upstream and downstream of Vance Creek

Projects may include adding salmon-spawning habitat and/or large woody debris, removing invasive plants, planting native vegetation, improving fish passage, removing gravel on gravel bars and spot-dredging.

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Forecasts for Puget Sound salmon runs call for lower returns this year compared to last year, but officials with the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife are emphasizing “promising” chinook fishing off Washington’s coast and Columbia River.

Each year, sport fishers line the banks of the Skokomish River as they try to catch the prized chinook salmon. / Kitsap Sun file photo

Preseason forecasts were released yesterday, launching the North of Falcon Process, which involves state and tribal salmon managers working together to set sport, commercial and tribal fisheries. Federal biologists and regulators keep watch over the negotiations to ensure compliance with the Endangered Species Act.

For a complete schedule of meetings leading up to final decisions the first week of April, go to the WDFW’s North of Falcon page.

With regard to fishing opportunities, Doug Milward, ocean salmon fishery manager for the agency, had this to say in yesterday’s news release:

“It’s still early in the process, but we will likely have an ocean salmon fishery similar to what we have seen the last two years, when we had an abundance of chinook in the ocean but low numbers of hatchery coho.”

(more…)

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A humpback whale, first seen in Hood Canal three weeks ago, was spotted again today.
Photo by Connie Gallant, Greenfleet Monitoring Expeditions

History repeated itself today on Dabob Bay, where Connie and JD Gallant were conducting research when a humpback whale surfaced nearby — just as events unfolded three weeks ago when the couple first reported the animal. See Water Ways, Jan. 31, for the initial report and some background on humpbacks.

Connie called me early this afternoon from her boat on Hood Canal’s Dabob Bay, then she sent a photo and e-mail with this description:

“We spotted it close to 12:20 p.m., and it put on a nice little show for about 10 minutes, then disappeared — same pattern as on 1/27. It was playing in same area, between Taylor Shellfish Labs and Broadspit.

“I was again on the computer inputting data as we headed north on Dabob Bay when JD yelled the same, ‘Whale off the port bow!’ This time, I did not hesitate flying out of the cockpit, grabbing camera on the way.”

Connie has a hunch that the whale likes her boat, the Sea Turtle:

“If you take a peek at the contour of the bottom of the Sea Turtle (see Greenfleet website), you will see that it has 2 keels and a skag on the stern. We think that this shape must be of interest to the whale, and it is saying ‘hello’ to the Turtle!

“And, just as the last time, it was totally awesome to watch it frolic. I absolutely cannot believe our fortune.”

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Hood Canal has lost one of the region’s original environmentalists.

Andy Rogers

Andy Rogers, who died two weeks ago at age 94, might be surprised that I would call him an environmentalist — and he probably wouldn’t like it.

But when it comes to nature, few people could match Andy’s love for Hood Canal. He worked as a trapper, logger and fisherman and often talked about the bounty once found in Hood Canal but now lost to the advance of our civilized society.

Andy would never deny someone the right to move to the Hood Canal region, to build a house, to enjoy the water and woods. But he understood better than most about what development has done to the natural world.

“Every time anybody moves here, it gets worse — and that includes me,” he once told me. “You can’t do anything about it. People have rights. It seems our rights are going to kill us in the country.”

If Andy were alive this week, he’d be one of the first I would call to ask about whether humpback whales — like the one observed on Friday — ever showed up in Hood Canal. (See yesterday’s Water Ways.) Other longtime residents I contacted could not remember seeing humpbacks anytime in the past.

I once asked Andy about resident killer whales — the ones that eat fish. The National Marine Fisheries Service was about to designate “critical habitat” for our endangered orcas, and the agency was not listing Hood Canal as a critical place for them to live.

Andy thought back and remembered watching killer whales when he was younger — and even hearing them breach before he could see them. “We called them ‘blackfish’ in those days,” he said.

I relied on Andy Rogers to put Hood Canal into historical perspective for me while writing a series of articles called “Hood Canal: Splendor at Risk,” a project that grew into a book by the same name.

Much of the Hood Canal region was logged before Andy was born, but he lived to see many second-growth harvests and some areas that grew into harvestable trees for a third time. As a child, Hood Canal was a wilder place.

“When I was 10 or 11 years old,” he said, “I saw a sign that said, ‘No trespassing.’ I went and asked my mother what that was, because I had never seen that before. People went where they wanted to go.”

Some wild animals have been displaced by logging, but the changes were not permanent. Rogers told me that humans remain in control and can decide whether to tolerate cougars, wolves and bears. In days gone by, he said, the answer was simply to kill them on sight.

“Man’s the only one of the species who can control how many there are going to be,” he said.

Andy recalled when salmon were plentiful and arrived on a regular schedule.

“I knew the salmon would start up the creek about the 20th of August,” he told me. “Pert’ near all these stream were full of salmon by Labor Day.”

I think the loss of the salmon saddened him. He once suggested that all fishing be stopped for four years — something that seemed out of character for Andy, a fisherman. But the result, he said, would be an abundance of salmon. People would be able to see the possibilities and learn how to manage salmon for the larger numbers that were possible.

Andy lamented the loss of steelhead. He told me that he remembers when they were thick in all Kitsap County streams. At the time, I wasn’t sure I believed that, because steelhead are so scarce today. You generally go to coastal rivers to find them. But later, after steehead were listed as a threatened species, state biologists told me there was no apparent reason for steelhead not to survive here — except for the fact that there are no fish left to breed.

Rogers said it was poaching that wiped them out. He remembers a man who ran a black market for the prized fish, and this “outlaw” foolishly netted the streams until all the steelhead were gone.

Andy supported reasonable efforts to protect wildlife habitat, “but you cannot shut the door and keep people out,” he insisted.

I concluded my profile of Andy with a comment he made: “Id sure like to stick around and see what this place is like in 50 years.”

If that were only possible, I’m sure many people — including Andy’s coffee and card friends at Seabeck Store — wouldn’t mind listening to his stories a little longer.

At Andy’s request, no services are planned. A military honor ceremony was held today with his family in attendance. Andy Rogers was an Army veteran of World War II.

Survivors include his children, Albert Rogers, Jo Ann Belis, Barbara Smith and Charles Rogers, along with many grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Jo Ann told me that she wanted to offer a special thanks to members of the Seabeck Community who had supported Andy through the years. His family placed an obituary in the Kitsap Sun on Jan. 25.

Andy Rogers offered many memories of Hood Canal through the years. This photo, taken in 1991 on Stavis Bay near his home, appeared in the book Hood Canal Splendor at Risk.

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UPDATE, Feb. 18

The humpback whale in Hood Canal may still be around. I received an e-mail from Barbara Clark, who spotted the whale yesterday (Friday) about 1:50 p.m. Both she and her husband Jim saw it this time, in the very same spot that Jim noticed it on Jan. 30 — specifically, just north of the Great Bend of Hood Canal toward the eastern shore.

Susan Berta of Orca Network told me that someone else saw the whale in southern Hood Canal about the same time.

These latest sightings only reinforce the mystery of the humpback whale that must still be swimming around Hood Canal but not making itself very obvious.
—–

A humpback whale made a rare appearance in Hood Canal’s Dabob Bay at the end of last week, then mysteriously disappeared from sight.

A humpback whale was sighted Friday in Dabob Bay by researchers Connie and JD Gallant.
Photo by Connie Gallant

As far as I can tell, Connie and JD Gallant, who were doing research on the bay Friday afternoon, were among the very few to see the humpback, or possibly two of them.

It makes you wonder how often large whales, such as humpbacks, come into Hood Canal without anyone seeing them, or at least reporting them.

“I was so thrilled,” Connie told me this morning as she described the encounter.

JD was motoring their 40-foot research vessel, the Sea Turtle, near Broadspit in the northern part of the estuary when he spotted one or more whales surfacing. JD stopped the boat, pulled up the water-testing meter, and yelled, “Whales off the port bow!”

Connie, who was below deck inputting data into a computer, ran up and began shooting photos. JD told Connie he believed there were two whales, but Connie only saw one.

Personally, I can’t remember anyone reporting humpbacks in Hood Canal. I phoned several folks I know who live on the canal, and nobody seems to recall ever seeing humpbacks. It is quite a different situation when one talks about visits to Hood Canal by gray whales or killer whales, which I’ve reported through the years.

My most memorable experience was in 2005, when a group of six transient killer whales spent more than five months swimming up and down the shorelines of Hood Canal, feasting on seals and sea lions whenever they got a chance. Those orcas stayed so long I thought they might make the canal their permanent home.

John Calambokidis of Cascadia Research told me that he has a general recollection of a humpback showing up in Hood Canal years ago, but he could not locate any written reports of the sightings. If someone was able to snap a picture of the underside of the fluke (tail) of a humpback, John said he might be able to identify the whale from a photographic catalog of humpbacks on the West Coast.

John tells me that a January sighting of a humpback whale is unusual, because most of the population is now on the breeding grounds near the Hawaiian Islands or else off the coast of Mexico. A few humpbacks are always around, he said, but it is worrisome when any animal shows up in a place where it is not expected.

Historically, one population of humpbacks spent the winters in the inland waters of northern Washington and southern British Columbia, but they were largely wiped out by commercial whalers, he said.

The West Coast population of humpbacks has been growing at about 7.5 percent a year since the early 1990s, according to Calambokidis. The general population now stands at about 2,000 animals, compared to about 500 more than 20 years ago.

As for the recent humpback sighting, I would like to get a report from anyone who may have seen this whale (or two) in Hood Canal or from anyone who may have seen one in the past.

Connie said the whale or whales that she observed Friday appeared to be “frolicking” — that is leaping out of the water, twisting and turning. She said they seemed to be about the size or her boat, about 40 feet long. That would make it a fairly young humpback.

The encounter lasted about 15 minutes, then the whales seemed to disappear, she said.

“We hung around for about an hour,” she said, “but they didn’t surface again.”

Connie and JD, who operate Greenfleet Monitoring Expeditions, have been collecting water-quality data — including information on dissolved oxygen — from Quilcene and Dabob bays.

The humpback whale spotted in Dabob Bay disappeared as mysteriously as it arrived.
Photo by Connie Gallant

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Flood control is no longer a primary objective of federal restoration work on the Skokomish River — but improving the ecosystem is likely to reduce flood problems for people who live in the valley.

The Skokomish Watershed Action Team (SWAT) surveys an area where the Skokomish River has wiped out all vegetation and left a massive gravel bar.
Photo by Steve Zugschwerdt

We don’t need to be reminded that the Skokomish is the most frequently flooded river in the state. Although I’m not sure how soon another river might take over that dubious distinction, it’s easy to see that a lot of time and money is being spent to get the river back to a more natural condition.

The Army Corps of Engineers, known for massive projects such as dikes, dams and dredging, won’t be adopting those sorts of projects for the Skokomish River.

Jessie Winkler, Skokomish project manager for the Army Corps of Engineers, explained it this way:

“Clearly, flooding is a problem in the basin. But because of limited residential and commercial activity, it would be very difficult to justify a flood-control project. In order to be justified as a federal project, the economic benefits must be greater than the cost.”

For further explanation, check out my story in Monday’s Kitsap Sun.

The good news is that the Corps has not turned its back on the Skokomish. In fact, the river is considered so important to the Hood Canal region that the agency is considering some large-scale projects focused on environmental restoration — including possibly relocating Skokomish Valley Road.

Other interesting ideas include creating sediment traps to capture gravel in selective locations, relocating existing dikes to create a wider river channel, forming new side channels to relieve flow on the main river and even aeration pumps to boost oxygen levels in Hood Canal.

Many of the projects designed for ecological improvement will also reduce the flooding problems.

A report, scheduled to be released in late spring or early summer, summarizes all information collected so far in the $4.7 million study of the Skokomish River watershed. The report will cover current ecological conditions, future ecological conditions without restoration and a list of potential restoration projects — including preliminary design, estimated costs and ecological benefits, Winkler told me.

Potential projects are only conceptual at this point, though experts have begun to look at locations along the river where different types of efforts may be fruitful. Further study will narrow the list of to a plan to be submitted to Congress for funding.

The upcoming report will begin to explore which of the following actions are most likely to succeed in specific locations:

• Remove or breach levees/dikes
• Construct setback levees/dikes
• Create salmon spawning habitat
• Reconnect wetlands, side channels, backwater areas, and tributaries
• Substrate modification
• Install aeration or oxygenation system in Annas Bay
• Reconnect dendritic channels in estuary
• Large woody debris
• Engineered Log Jams
• Fish passable weir
• Channel stabilization
• Riverbed and wetland vehicle exclusion
• Enhance vegetation – riparian & estuarine
• Control invasive species
• Channel rehabilitation or new channel creation
• Selective gravel removal on gravel bars
• Spot-dredge
• Sediment trap
• Culverts: a) add; b) remove; c) replace; d) upgrade
• Road modifications
• Rehabilitate bank lines
• Cool water diversion to Annas Bay

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U.S. Rep. Norm Dicks and U.S. Sen. Patty Murray have announced their support for a plan that would add 130,000 acres of land to wilderness areas in Olympic National Forest, designate 23 rivers as “wild and scenic” and open the door to adding 20,000 acres to Olympic National Park.

This map shows areas proposed for public wilderness, park and river designations. / Click on image for full map (PDF 10.6 mb).

As I describe in a story in today’s Kitsap Sun, the proposal is based on a plan put forth by a coalition of 10 conservation groups called Wild Olympics.

Connie Gallant, chairwoman of Wild Olympics, told me that the group has been working with stakeholder and community groups to consolidate support on the Olympic Peninsula. Quoting Gallant’s statement on the website:

“Over the past two years, Wild Olympics has been reaching out to Peninsula communities to build support from diverse local voices, listen to concerns and get feedback on our draft proposal. More than 4,500 Peninsula residents have signed our petition, and nearly 200 Peninsula businesses, farms, faith leaders, hunting and fishing groups, elected officials, conservation and civic groups support Wild Olympics.”

It is not obvious that wilderness is a true water issue — the focus of this blog — but Bill Taylor, vice president of Taylor Shellfish Farms, is fairly convincing:

“The two largest shellfish hatcheries that supply seed to the West Coast industry are located on Hood Canal. Well over 150 jobs are provided in Hood Canal alone by the industry, not including the indirect jobs such as processing, sales and shipping. By protecting Olympic Peninsula forest and river watersheds, we ensure clean and safe water so that shellfish companies can continue to grow and further benefit the economy and ecology of Washington state.”

The above is one testimonial on the Wild Olympics website, which also includes statements by Bremerton’s Mike Hank of Veterans Conservation Corps, Mayor Michelle Sandoval of Port Townsend, Sequim author Tim McNulty of Olympic Park Associates, Hoodsport’s Ron Gold of RG Forestry Consultants, Aberdeen’s Roy Nott of Paneltech and Gardiner’s Dave Bailey of Greywolf Fly Fishing Club and Trout Unlimited.

Wild Olympics was started by Olympic Park Associates, Olympic Forest Coalition, Olympic Peninsula Audubon Society and North Olympic Group – Sierra Club. Added later were Washington Wilderness Coalition, The Mountaineers, Pew Environment Group, Sierra Club, American Rivers and American Whitewater.

To counteract the work of the Wild Olympics Campaign, Dan Boeholt of Aberdeen founded Working Wild Olympics, because he does not believe wilderness designations will be helpful.

“We’re arguing that if you put these lands into wilderness, it will restrict public access,” Boeholt told me. “There are miles and miles of roads that would be affected.”

Dicks and Murray say they will propose specific legislation after listening to the public. These meetings have been scheduled:

Port Townsend: Dec. 1, 5 to 7 p.m., Chapel Building, Fort Worden State Park Conference Center.

Shelton: Dec. 2, 5 to 7 p.m., Shelton Civic Center, 525 W. Cota Street.

Port Angeles: Dec. 3, 3 to 5 p.m., Museum at the Carnegie, 207 S. Lincoln St.

Hoquiam: Dec. 4, 3 to 5 p.m., Central Elementary School Library, 310 Simpson Ave.

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