SEQUIM — Olympic National Forest administrators hosted a get-together this week to spark interest in participating in the creation of a draft action plan for the Dungeness River basin watershed.
Dean Yoshina, district ranger for the Hood Canal Ranger District for Olympic National Forest, said the intent of the public meeting Tuesday night in Guy Cole Community Center at Carrie Blake Park was to bring in interested parties so the Forest Service could gauge community concerns and priorities for the 170 square miles of the forest.
The collaborative approach to planning forestland management is geared to allowing North Olympic Peninsula residents a strong say in the habitat and wildlife protection, Forest Service roads and trails restoration, and general recreational uses in the fragile watershed.
“If the Forest Service is going to be relevant to the communities we serve, we really need to listen to what you say,” Yoshina told about 50 in attendance.
Representatives on hand said the Dungeness River basin effort would be the third of two other successful watershed action plans on the Olympic Peninsula, in the Skokomish and the Calawah River basins, southeast and far west, respectively.
Representatives of environmental groups including The Wilderness Society and the Sierra Club, regional tribes and city and county leaders will be among those engaged in the action planning process that is scheduled to create a draft plan by the end of September.
Potential sites for projects and restoration will be presented sometime in late August.
A field trip will be scheduled July 29 and 30 for those who want to see potential project sites.
Those interested can phone Susan Piper, Olympic National Forest Dungeness Watershed Action Plan team leader, at 360-956-2435 or email spiper@fs.fed.us.
The Dungeness River Management Team will tour the sites Aug. 10.
Clallam County Commissioner Mike Doherty, who said he was standing in for fellow Commissioner Steve Tharinger of Sequim, said he is thinking about the legacy left to his children and grandchildren.
“I think on the Peninsula, things are basically healthy, but it’s not publicized,” Doherty said, adding that he attended meetings on the Calawah River watershed action plan and found it to be a successful collaboration of entities and individuals.
“I think the Forest Service is opening up to some opinions, and it’s better to have a bottom-up process,” he said.
Paul Haines, city of Sequim public works director who will have an active role in the Dungeness River basin’s planning, said a healthy upper basin was critical to the city of Sequim’s future water quality.
“What happens in the upper basin has an impact on the people in the city,” Haines said.
He added that city leaders realize the city has a finite amount of river water and is working to reuse more water for irrigation from the city’s expanded wastewater treatment and reclamation facility on the city’s east side.
Haines warned that a decline in river water quality would be bad news for the city.
Scott Chitwood, Jamestown S’Klallam tribe natural resources director, said a healthy forest was important to the Blyn-based tribe.
“We think of healthy forest as having healthy lungs,” Chitwood said.
The National Forest Service has done “pretty good” in the upper Dungeness basin, he said.
But there are other concerns, he said, such as the Dungeness chinook salmon, which is one of 22 fish populations in Puget Sound listed under the Endangered Species Act.
Chitwood said pre-commercial thinned forestlands generally offer more forage habitat for deer and elk.
He also said the tribe would be interested in working with the Forest Service to place large woody debris in the river to help improve fish protection and habitat.
Piper said work done since 2000 in the Forest Service’s Dungeness River basin includes maintenance of 66 miles of trails, treatment of 176 acres of non-native weeds, thinning of 1,630 acres of pre-commercial forest trees and 69 acres of commercial trees and improvement for elk foraging of 67 acres.
Piper said 38 miles of road were stabilized and 30 miles of roads were decommissioned, with some made into trails.
Two fish passage barriers were removed, she said.
Scott Haggerty, Olympic National Forest soils scientist, said the agency and tribe are working together to provide fish habitat.
“We’ve done some clearcuts to bring in elk to forage,” he added.
Piper said the Forest Service would be lost without the assistance of the Clallam County Weed Board and the county weed manager, Cathy Lucero, to manage invasive non-native plants that threaten the national forest.
“Knotweed is horrendous in the riparian area,” Piper said.
The action plan will be a process of “putting together a wish list of opportunity projects that can be done,” she said.
Mike Anderson, senior resource analyst for The Wilderness Society since 1985, said the Skokomish River basin watershed action plan was a highly successful process.
“We have accomplished most of the restoration effort because the county, tribe and Forest Service worked together,” Anderson said.
“I think the Dungeness is a good opportunity to have something like this happen.”
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Sequim-Dungeness Valley Editor Jeff Chew can be reached at 360-681-2391 or at jeff.chew@peninsuladailynews.com.
