Environmental groups sue to stop 400 acres of logging in WA’s Elwha Watershed

Three environmental groups are suing to block the logging of nearly 400 acres of state forestland in Washington’s Elwha Watershed.

Filed Monday in Clallam County Superior Court, the lawsuit against the state’s Department of Natural Resources argues the agency failed to adequately assess the environmental harm of two timber sales, known as “Parched” and “Tree Well.” Logging the land would pose a “direct threat” to Port Angeles’ drinking water, which is sourced solely from the Elwha River, the lawsuit contends. 

“We are so lucky to still have some of these forests left,” said Elizabeth Dunne, an attorney with Earth Law Center, one of the groups behind the lawsuit. “There’s only about 800 acres of structurally complex forests left in the watershed. And nearly half of those are these two timber sales that we appealed.”

Under the Department of Natural Resources’ standards, only trees that predate 1850 are considered old growth and set aside for conservation. The oldest stands proposed for harvest in the Parched sale are around 140 years old, dating back only to the 1880s. Both sales include stands more than 100 years old. 

Dunne described the trees as “the old growth of tomorrow” — mature forests that provide wildlife habitat, store carbon, retain moisture in soils and help support summer streamflows in the Elwha River.

The river is the site of one of the country’s largest dam removal projects. In the early 2010s, after years of advocacy by the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe, the federal government tore down two hydroelectric dams that had blocked salmon runs for nearly a century. Since then, hundreds of millions of federal dollars have gone toward restoring the river. 

“At the same time, on state lands in the watershed, there’s been this continued, basically clear-cut logging,” Dunne said. 

“The number one priority should be putting millions of dollars towards, you know, protecting these forests,” she added. “They’re our number one defense against climate change.” 

The Board of Natural Resources approved the two timber sales in a 4-2 vote in November 2024, before Public Lands Commissioner Dave Upthegrove took office. Together, the sales account for less than 1% of the watershed and are expected to bring in at least $2.2 million in revenue for Clallam County and its junior taxing districts, according to the Department of Natural Resources.  

Upthegrove campaigned on a promise to set aside older forests on state forestland, but has said previously the agency wouldn’t be legally successful in modifying timber sales approved under the previous administration.

The agency declined to comment for this story, citing the pending litigation. 

Murphy Company, a family-owned logging operation that specializes in making products with older timber, purchased the two sales for $6.8 million, more than $2 million above the minimum bid. 

Tying a timber sale up in litigation is “really a struggle” for logging companies, said Heath Heikkila, with the American Forest Resource Council, a lead timber industry group in the region. 

It causes uncertainty and forces companies to scramble to find other harvestable lands, he said, while revenue to the Department of Natural Resources, counties and schools can be delayed or lost. 

In an email discussing the case’s hearing schedule, a Murphy Company attorney indicated that harvesting would not begin before October. If the case hasn’t been resolved by then, Dunne worries that the company could begin cutting before the court reaches a final decision.

That has happened before. For example, in 2023, a Grays Harbor County judge dismissed a lawsuit to conserve state forestland in the “About Time” timber sale after logging occurred, writing that the trees the suit sought to protect were “clearly no longer available.” 

On Tuesday, the Department of Natural Resources removed 21 acres from the Parched timber sale to protect “rare plant communities” that were reported by the Legacy Forest Defense Coalition’s program director, Joshua Wright. But Wright said the agency didn’t take action on a second set of rare plant communities he documented in the sale area. Protecting those plants would require pulling another 68 acres from the sale, he said.

“This is a flat out violation of DNR policy and a betrayal by Commissioner Upthegrove,” Wright said. “It’s easier and more lucrative for DNR to log it because, you know, the timber is worth several million dollars.”

The lawsuit

In their 53-page filing, the Earth Law Center, the Center for Whale Research and the Orca Network, argue that the Department of Natural Resources violated the State Environmental Policy Act by failing to take a “hard look” at the consequences of logging the two tracts. They also claim the agency did not adequately study how removing the mature forests would affect the hydrology of the Elwha Watershed. 

In its initial environmental review, the department only released a one-sentence summary of water impacts, stating that logging is not likely to “change the timing, duration, or volume of water” during flooding or other “peak flow events,” according to the lawsuit. 

After public comments requesting further review, including from the Port Angeles City Council, a Department of Natural Resources hydrologist submitted a water impact report to the Board of Natural Resources. It was received on the day the timber sales were up for approval, leaving board members less than three hours to review the 18-page technical report before casting their votes, according to the brief. 

The lawsuit also argues that the agency did not consider how herbicide applied after cutting the trees could affect the Elwha River and did not analyze alternatives to logging. 

Last year, the state Legislature approved $250,000 for the Department of Natural Resources to conduct an ecological analysis of the Elwha Watershed and identify areas appropriate for conservation. The forests in Parched and Tree Well tracts are not included in that analysis, but timber sale opponents say they should be. 

Tashena Francis, a Lower Elwha Klallam tribal member, says she has served as an unofficial tribal liaison between the tribe and the Department of Natural Resources. Francis helped distribute a community survey for the Elwha Watershed study to help people “have a voice in the protection” of the area. 

Francis said her family members are basket weavers. They gather medicinal plants and pick berries together, but one of the biggest problems the tribe is facing now is finding a forest to go to, she said. 

Recently, a teacher within the tribe’s culture department asked her where she could bring her children to gather cedar. 

“That’s horrible that she has to reach out and even ask that question,” Francis said. “We just don’t have many places to go anymore because they’ve been depleted.”