FORKS — Jeff Baierlein has been hired as the new executive director of the Hoh River Trust, which owns 6,600 acres of land on a 35-mile stretch of the Hoh River near Forks.
He succeeds Mike Hagen, now director of land management for the trust.
Baierlein was previously vice president for outdoor education and camping services for Girl Scouts of Western Washington in Seattle.
Earlier, he was director of education services at Olympic Park Institute — now NatureBridge — at Lake Crescent west of Port Angeles and an executive with Outward Bound in Baltimore.
He is a member of the board of directors of Northwest Outward Bound School in Seattle.
He has a master’s degree in management from Antioch University-Seattle.
Culvert work
The Hoh River Trust recently completed removing the final four culverts blocking salmon passage on land it owns in the Hoh River basin.
The four locations where streams were opened are on the Schmidt Bar forest road, on a forest road near Oil City Road and U.S. Highway 101 at Nolan Springs and on the Rayonier Bar.
While doing this, it decommissioned another 1.5 miles of abandoned forest road, but those will remain passable for hiking and emergency access.
To date, the trust has decommissioned more than 5.5 miles of unstable or unneeded roads and removed 22 major culverts, replacing two with concrete bridges.
The remaining road system is actively used for recreation access and forest management.
Most were overdue for replacement, and two had been passage barriers since the 1940s.
A half-mile of road damaged by landslides on the lower Hoh was opened and stabilized, preventing sediment runoff into the salmon stream and wetlands below.
J&D Enterprises NW of Beaver did the excavation work on the project, which was funded by the Pacific Coast Salmon Recovery Fund in partnership with the Hoh tribe.
Replanting and finishing work will be done by high school students working with the coalition and Lincoln High School in Port Angeles.
For more information on the culvert work, visit hohrivertrust.org or phone Hagen at 360-908-0311 or trust co-president Randy Messenbrink at 360-640-2238.
