Public forums on a draft land and scenic river preservation proposal are planned today in Port Townsend and Saturday in Port Angeles.
The plan was put forward by U.S. Rep. Norm Dicks and Sen. Patty Murray as an alternative to a similar plan by Quilcene-based Wild Olympics.
The Path Forward on Olympic Watersheds Protection Proposal cuts nearly in half — to 20,000 acres — the amount of private land that Wild Olympics is proposing that could be purchased for additions to Olympic National Park.
The Port Townsend meeting will be from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. today at the chapel building at the Fort Worden State Park Conference Center, 200 Battery Way in Port Townsend.
The Port Angeles meeting will be from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday at the Museum at the Carnegie, 207 S. Lincoln St.
A Hoquiam workshop is planned Sunday, while another is planned in Shelton on Friday.
Elements of proposal
Dicks’ and Murray’s plan, which was announced Nov. 15, would:
■ Designate about 130,000 acres of new wilderness on U.S. Forest Service land.
That’s 4,000 acres less than the Wild Olympics plan.
■ Add 23 river systems within Olympic National Park and Olympic National Forest to the federal Wild and Scenic River System, increasing protections
According to a map supplied by Murray’s office, the rivers inside the park and national forest appear to be the same as those proposed by Wild Olympics and include the Bogachiel, Hoh, Sol Duc and Elwha rivers.
■ Allow Olympic National Park — on its own — to buy up to 20,000 acres through willing-buyer, willing-seller arrangements compared with the 37,000 acres proposed for additions to the park by Wild Olympics in its 2-year-old proposal.
The park cannot now buy land within its general management plan without congressional approval.
Three areas designated for possible sale on the map provided by Murray’s office are at Lake Crescent and on the park’s western tip in Jefferson County near Grays Harbor County in an area designated as the Queets Corridor.
■ Remove most of the state Department of Natural Resources land that was included in the Wild Olympics proposal.
No legislation has been drafted on the plan.
The Wild Olympics Campaign is supporting the Dicks-Murray plan, Wild Olympics Chairwoman Connie Gallant of Quilcene has said.
Carol Johnson, director of the North Olympic Timber Action Committee, has worried that jobs would be lost.
