PORT ANGELES — A virtual meeting on Monday will provide an update on the Olympic National Park’s plans for the Enchanted Valley chalet while also providing information on the Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act consultation process.
The virtual meeting will be from 3 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday at Virtual Meeting – Enchanted Valley Chalet NHPA Section 106 Consultation.
A recording of the meeting will be available for anyone who is interested but unable to attend, the park said.
No document review or comment period is associated with this meeting.
The meeting of officials of Olympic National Park with the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation (ACHP) and the Washington State Historic Preservation Officer (SHPO) will provide information and an overview of the Section 106 consultation process for the Enchanted Valley Chalet, the park said.
Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) requires the NPS to work with consulting parties to determine the effects of a project on historic properties and, when there is an adverse effect, to develop mitigation measures.
Section 106 also requires the NPS to seek and consider the views of the public on the project’s effects to historic properties.
The park’s preferred alternative for the chalet is to dismantle and remove it, according to an environmental assessment published last summer.
Located 13 miles from the nearest road in a wilderness area designated in 1988, the chalet, which was built in the early 1930s before the park was established in 1938, was situated on a bank of the East Fork Quinault River.
The structure was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2007.
By 2014, the river had eroded the bank to within 18 inches of the structure.
The chalet, which originally was used as a backcountry lodge and more recently as a ranger station, was moved about 100 feet away from the river’s eroded edge.
Monday’s meeting will discuss plans and mitigation for the final disposition of the historic structure.
