TAHOLAH — The state Supreme Court has declined to review a lawsuit that challenged the Quinault Indian Nation’s ownership in Lake Quinault.
A group of owners, North Quinault Properties, sued in 2015, arguing that the state owned the bed of Lake Quinault on the Olympic Peninsula and had failed to protect public access to it.
The legal battle was triggered when property owners along the lake were notified by the tribe in 2015 that the property would be subject to certain rules and, for a time, that the water was off limits, according to The Daily World of Aberdeen.
In January, a state appeals court upheld a lower court’s decision to deny the property owners’ petition.
The state Supreme Court on Wednesday declined to take up the case.
The tribe has claimed beneficial ownership of the lake under the 1856 Treaty of Olympia.
“Hopefully, this will end the long odyssey through multiple courts to an end,” said tribal President Fawn Sharp.
“There is no question that the tribe owns the lake. We always have. Now, court decision after court decision have upheld our ownership,” she said.
Thomas Landreth, who said his family has owned land along the lake since 1943, is leading the North Quinault Properties group, which he said consists of about 15 people, The Daily World has said.
Landreth is frustrated because the legal defeats his side has suffered have involved jurisdictional issues and not the evidence his side would use to back up its claim, The Daily World said.
Key to his case, Landreth said, is demonstrating that the lake is a navigable body of water that has been used for commerce. If that’s true, the state has jurisdiction over the lake, he said.
“The whole issue is that we were trying to get into a courtroom to have some unbiased person determine that what the tribe did was legal or that it was not legal,” Landreth told The Daily World.
“Obviously, [the Quinault Nation] has been very successful in blocking that. They claim immunity. We can’t sue the state or the feds, how do we get recourse … and how do you know … they are not going to close [the lake] down again?”
