“Every river has its people” has long been a saying among the native people in the northern reach of the Olympic Peninsula. In the past two decades the Dungeness River’s people in northern Puget Sound have managed to avoid litigation by collaborating to resolve water use disputes, working together to restore the river that sustains them.

The Dungeness River is one of the steepest rivers in North America. It originates up around 7000 feet in the regal Olympic Mountains and descends a dramatic 4000 feet over its first four miles. Its lower ten miles flow through the Sequim-Dungeness valley, a uniquely arid part of the mostly sodden Olympic Peninsula. A rain shadow cast by the mountains means that a scant 16 inches of rain falls annually where the river lets out into the Strait of San Juan de Fuca, close to the Canadian border.

Archeological evidence shows that people have inhabited this 27-square mile watershed for as many as 11,000 years. The landscape has changed dramatically in the most recent 150 years, the result of a major increase in human population. The S’Klallam Tribe (the name means “strong people”) subsisted on salmon and other coastal resources in the area for thousands of years; an 1855 treaty compelled them to give up their claim to 438,000 acres of land, but they retained treaty rights to fish, hunt and gather on the north Olympic Peninsula. At that time European settlement began in earnest, bringing logging operations that exported timber down the Pacific coast, and farmers who diked the lower river out of its floodplain and began building what is now over 170 miles of irrigation ditches in the lower Dungeness Valley.

In 1874 when the S’Klallam Tribe was threatened with relocation to a reservation, a handful of families pooled $500 in gold coin to purchase 210 acres of land along Dungeness Bay; they called their community Jamestown. Today their descendents comprise the 525 members of the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe. The Tribe’s natural resources department is charged with protecting the fish and wildlife to which the 1855 treaty gave them access. Reversing dwindling salmon runs are a major priority. In 1963, the first year they were counted, there were 400,000 pink salmon in the Dungeness River; by 1981 the population was down to 2900. Currently eight stocks of Pacific salmon return from the ocean to spawn in the Dungeness River. Two of those – chinook and summer chum – are listed as “threatened” for this region under the Endangered Species Act.

Ann Seiter started working as the Tribe’s natural resources manager in the mid-1980s. She remembers a Tribal council elder saying to her, “Please do something about the Dungeness, the fish runs are going down, you can tell that there's no water for the fish.” Ann started by researching water rights and found that the local farming community had legal access to far more water than the Dungeness could provide.

“There were nine different irrigation districts and companies in the valley at that time, and they had different boards and they didn’t talk to each other,” says Ann. “There was no central association, so if we wanted to ask for voluntary conservation, we had to call all nine entities and we’d get varying levels of cooperation.” In those early years it was very contentious with the farming community. When farmers were asked to conserve water for salmon, they felt very threatened.

“Roger Schmidt was a local farmer who tried to get the farmers to talk to the Tribe early on and got a lot of criticism for it,” explains Ann. He finally succeeded in bringing the irrigators in the valley under one umbrella, the Dungeness Water Users Association. “Roger got folks organized, and that was a big step,” recalls Ann.

In 1987, a severe drought reduced the Dungeness River to a trickle you could step over, and pink salmon had to be captured and trucked upstream. At an antagonistic meeting between the Tribe and the water users, it became clear that neither side had data about how much water was being withdrawn, nor how much salmon needed. “You can shout about how many fish there are and how much water is in the river, but unless you actually have data you’re just shouting about whose got a right when you don’t even know how much of the resource you are using or that you need,” notes Ann.

Subsequent measurements revealed that a whopping 82 percent of the Dungeness River was being diverted for irrigation during the dry season, which didn’t leave much for salmon. “For the farmers and the Tribe alike it was a startling statistic,” Ann says. “And while it is hard to explain to some of the old timers why we can’t get by with the old practices, I think the leadership of the irrigation districts understands.”

The push to work together to improve water levels in the river came from other quarters as well. The Department of Ecology made the case to the farmers, advising them to avoid litigation if they could. For its part, the Tribe preferred avoiding high attorney fees, and they knew litigation could take years and years while the salmon runs continued to decline.

When another Sequim farmer, Dave Cameron, was elected to the county board of commissioners, he quickly made good on a campaign promise and formed the Dungeness River Management Team, bringing the Tribe, irrigators, property owners, conservationists, and public agencies together. According to Ann, “That was extremely constructive. We started meeting monthly right off the bat, developing personal relationships to talk about what the problems were, to begin to define the technical questions that needed to be answered.”
 
The Dungeness River Management Team worked together to forge a groundbreaking voluntary agreement. The irrigators agreed to withdraw no more than 50 percent of the river’s flow in perpetuity, even though they are legally entitled to much more than that. The Tribe agreed to help with conservation efforts, and to work to address other impacts on fish habitat. Water conservation was not the only problem – dikes, land use, and forestry also has detrimental effects– and the farmers wanted that acknowledged.

The century-old irrigation system in the valley was in need of some serious repair, and the Tribe helped the farmers secure over $1 million in grant funds for improvements. Enclosing ditches and lining pipes has allowed more water to stay in the river, while also giving the farmers a more reliable, easier to maintain irrigation system. In 2001, another drought year reduced the river to levels that were similar to those in 1987; but this time, irrigators withdrew just 33 percent of the Dungeness’s flow.

“The big conflict between fish and irrigation really occurs around the first of September,” explains Ann, “because that is when it’s the end of the irrigation season – it’s a last watering for the farmers and it’s the peak of chinook spawning. We’ve been trying to focus a lot of effort on water conservation at that time.”

Ann reflects, “My first ten years on this issue we spent a lot of time focusing on water conservation because it was a no-brainer; it was obvious we had a problem when you could step across the river in the summer. The last ten years there has been a lot of effort on floodplain issues, a lot of studies being done, and a lot of property is being purchased along the riparian corridor through mostly public funds and the local land trust.”

“Property owners in flood prone areas are being bought out,” Ann explains. “Most of the property owners want to get out, so it is mutually beneficial.” As property in the river’s historic floodplain becomes available, it will be purchased; buildings and septic systems will be removed along with some dikes, so that the river’s original meanders can be restored. “We are making a big effort to minimize new construction close to the river, particularly where people are threatened by flooding and where fish habitat is also a concern,” comments Ann.

Rapid growth and development of this sunny corner of the Olympic Peninsula is perhaps the most pressing current concern for the Tribe and farmers alike (see Nash Huber story). Over the last 30 years, the number of retirees living in the area has tripled. “New development is still a threat,” comments Ann. “We have concerns about whether county regulations are stringent enough. I am particularly concerned about urbanization encroaching on the river.” With this new influx of residents to the valley, there will continue to be more people to engage in sustaining the vitality of the Dungeness River.

Contact
Ann E. Seiter
PO Box 4
Curlew, WA 99118