BY PEPPER FISHER
Sequim – The City of Sequim will wait to make a final decision on a letter of support for the “The Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe Land Transfer Act of 2026”, legislation that would transfer the Dungeness and Protection Island National Wildlife Refuges, to the Bureau of Indian Affairs to be held in trust for the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe.
The city council opted to table the letter for now after this week’s city council meeting which was filled with people concerned about the issue.
The letter says, “The City supports restoring Jamestown S’Klallam’s Tribal homelands to the Tribe while maintaining conservation protections for fish, wildlife, and habitat. The legislation’s preservation of appropriate public access…through a Tribal Management Plan is important to Sequim residents, particularly with respect to the Dungeness National Wildlife Refuge, which sees thousands of visitors each year.”
Among the federal legislators working to see the proposal through are Senator Maria Cantwell and Congresswoman Emily Randall. Randall’s office has not been willing to respond to our questions about the proposal since we began asking in January, but KONP spoke with the Jamestown Tribe’s CEO Ron Allen on Monday, who told us that he is in Washington and will be meeting with Congresswoman Randall about the matter on Tuesday.
“She has introduced similar legislation for the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe as well as for the Quinault Tribe. Each of them have land that they’re asking to be transferred over to the bureau on behalf of their tribes. And so ours is very similar, but ours is coming out of Fish and Wildlife. And we took over the refuge, and we are currently managing it for the last couple years, and it’s been going very, very well, and very successful.”
We reached out to the Pacific Region Office of the US Fish and Wildlife Service for additional details, but a voice message says the office is closed during the current partial government shutdown.
Chairman Allen says the public can expect the same access to the refuges as they have come to expect, with some improvements on the way, as well.
“Well yeah, we’re going to upgrade all the signage throughout the trails so people even know where the the offices are. You kind of have to know where the offices are if you want to asked any questions of the Rangers. There’s a big dead tree right at the head of the trail, so we’re going to replace that dead tree with a totem pole. And then we worked with the Fish and Wildlife on upgrading the restrooms. We also paid for the upgrades for the maintenance road that goes up Protection Island. So, we took our excavation company and equipment over there and fixed it.”
As for a timeline for the proposal…
“The Quinault and Lower Elwha legislation has been introduced. We’ll be talking to Emily on when she’s going to introduce ours. Senator Cantwell is combining all three on the Senate side. That one’s almost ready to go, as well. So, the hope is to get them in the hopper here by either this month or early next month. We’re highly expecting to get bipartisan co-sponsorship.”