Residents of the Hoh River Valley are continuing to meet to discuss their opposition to a proposed land trust that would conserve the lower 30 miles of the river in Jefferson County’s West End.
In the sparsely populated valley, about a half-dozen landowners have been convening to talk about the Hoh River Project, work out policy and formulate plans to make their position known.
Some residents have said they are skeptical of the project’s goals — to purchase 10,000 acres in the valley that would be put into a trust forever as a way to conserve salmon habitat and maintain the valley in its current state for wildlife and humans.
With some state and federal money supporting the project, residents also see it as their tax dollars being used against them.
And they wonder why the river must be conserved when it doesn’t seem to be threatened.
“I don’t think we’ve come across anyone who doesn’t feel the way we do,” Bob Huelsdonk, owner of Hoh Humm Ranch along the river, said Tuesday.
Last week, state Rep. Jim Buck, R-Joyce, challenged Interior Secretary Gale Norton on how the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Cooperative Endangered Species Conservation Fund is supporting the Hoh River Project, saying in a letter that the funds are “being misused by the Western Rivers Conservancy under the guise of protecting the Hoh River.”
Purchasing acreage
Western Rivers Conservancy, a Portland, Ore.,-based nonprofit, is purchasing acreage in the Hoh valley to eventually give to the trust.
“I don’t know what will come from it, but at least we’ve gotten the word out to a lot of people,” Huelsdonk said of Buck’s efforts.
