Tribe seeks 37 acres of Olympic National Park

Just ask members of the Hoh Tribe: The river that carries their name is shoving them right out of their reservation. The Hoh are a tiny tribe of fewer than 300 members, with an even smaller reservation — only a mile square when it was created in 1893. And the reservation is besieged by water from three directions: Storm surges barrel in from the Pacific. The river floods nearly every winter. And then there's the torrential rain: The Hoh live in one of the rainiest places in the lower forty-eight. The tribe's community center and many members' homes on the reservation are encircled by sandbags to hold back the water that is too often at their doors. Some homes have even been abandoned. As chunks of their reservation wash away, the Hoh have turned to Congress for help, seeking legislation to deed a chunk of Olympic National Park to the tribe to move the remote, isolated reservation to higher ground. The tribe has worked for several years to acquire a safe homeland for its people and a viable land base for economic development. The tribe has purchased about 260 acres to move some of its reservation out of the flood zone, and has taken title to 160 acres transferred to the tribe from the state Department of Natural Resources. The tribe now is seeking 37 acres of national-park land, to be deeded into trust as part of its reservation, through an act of Congress...read more