LAPUSH — Land swap negotiations between Olympic National Park and the Quileute tribe just got a little push from the Olympic Peninsula’s state representatives.
The negotiations have toddled on for more than a year, and Rep. Lynn Kessler, D-Hoquiam, Rep. Jim Buck, R-Joyce, and Sen. Jim Hargrove, D-Hoquiam, are urging the federal government to speed up the process.
The three lawmakers recently sent a letter to the state’s congressional delegation asking for its assistance on the matter.
The land swap would settle a more than 50-year boundary dispute between the tribe and the park, and as proposed would provide the tribe with higher ground to relocate the Quileute Tribal School out of a tsunami zone.
“The community of LaPush is at extreme risk,” Buck said in a statement issued Wednesday.
“We need Congress to step up quickly to protect these people from this inevitable natural disaster,” he said.
News of the legislators’ letter came as a surprise to the tribe, and Quileute Tribal Chairman Russell Woodruff said tribal members were thankful.
Woodruff also applauded Buck for his dedication to educating others about the tsunami threat.
Buck has created a slide presentation on the effects of a Cascadia subduction earthquake off the coast anywhere between Vancouver Island and Northern California.
He has presented it to community groups throughout the 24th Legislative District, and is delivering it later this month at the federal government’s Pacific Peril 2006 conference.
The three-day conference is meant to educate federal agencies and military personnel about responding to natural disasters in the Northwest.
Buck’s report notes that if a tsunami was triggered, it could wipe out the Quileute tribe’s entire lower village within minutes.
The quake would most likely destroy the tribe’s only evacuation route, which is a two-lane road surrounded by cliffs with soft soil, Buck said.
“There simply wouldn’t be enough time to get people to safe elevations on foot before the first tsunami arrives,” he said.
For now, the problem seems to be finding enough land without environmental restrictions that can be given to the tribe.
Olympic National Park negotiators put their first written proposal on the table last month, identifying about 200 acres of potentially usable land.
In exchange for the land, the tribe is being asked to relinquish its claim to disputed territory at Rialto Beach, and allow permanent access to the breakwater south of Rialto Beach and the trailhead to Second Beach.
The tribe blocked access to the Rialto Beach breakwater and Second Beach trailhead in October when it found out much of the land it seeks was designated as restricted wilderness by Congress in 1988.
Another act of Congress would be required to make the land available to the tribe, something that could hinder an immediate resolution.
