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Port Angeles-Sequim-West End
The drought How much water you’ll have this summer depends on the source: ground or river BY ARWYN RICE PAUL GOTTLIEB PENINSULA DAILY NEWS AND
On the North Olympic Peninsula, the statewide drought is wrapped around a tale of groundwater vs. snowpack. While snowpack-fed rivers are extremely low on the Peninsula, wells that pump groundwater from deep aquifers in Clallam and Jefferson counties remain flush with water, according to water managers in the region. Most water systems in the Clallam County Public Utility District and all in the Jefferson
County PUD rely on wells, which are primarily fed by winter rainfall that was 93 percent of average this year, according to the National Weather Service and other agencies that track rainfall. What is lacking is an Olympic Mountains snowpack to supplement river water and, in the long term, to feed aquifers from which groundwater is pumped into wells. “We just haven’t had anything measurable stay up there,� Mike Kitz, Clallam PUD water superintendent, said Friday. “In years past, we’ve always been able to see snow up there at
this time of year,� said Kitz, who has worked in the PUD’s water department for 38 years. The drought is so severe that Kitz said the drought could have an impact on groundwater, depending on how long it lasts. “We are optimistic about it,� he said. “We just don’t know what will happen in a drought year like this.�
Port Angeles
KEITH THORPE/PENINSULA DAILY NEWS
The city of Port Angeles will The Elwha River flows past a gauging station near McDonald Mountain south of the U.S. Highway 101 bridge not run out of drinking water. southwest of Port Angeles last week. The river is the TURN TO DROUGHT/A4 principal source of water for Port Angeles and vicinity.
PA’s Revitalizer pumps up city She accentuates positive to do many projects BY DIANE URBANI
PAZ
DE LA
PENINSULA DAILY NEWS
DIANE URBANI
DE LA
PAZ/PENINSULA DAILY NEWS
Leslie Robertson, left, joins daughter Annie, 16, and canine companion Riley on the family’s Port Angeles back porch.
PORT ANGELES — Leslie Kidwell, two years out of Port Angeles High School, had California on her mind. “I decided I wanted more adventure,� she recalled. With $200 to her name, she took off for Los Angeles. It was 1985, and she found a retail job and a place to rent right away. “It was really fun — for about five years,� she said. She met Tom Robertson, a captain with the Los Angeles
County Fire Department. They married and started a family. Which was about when Leslie Robertson realized: She’d left her heart in the other Angeles. “I got really homesick. I just ached for this place,� she said. Tom was almost ready to retire, so they started making plans. She would move up here with their two girls, Lily, then 6, and Annie, then 8. Tom would keep working, two weeks on at the fire station and two weeks off — in Port Angeles. They’ve since built a house in the country east of town. Annie and Lily are in high school, and their mother has the time and energy for something else again. It all began last October. TURN
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REVITALIZER/A5
25 years later: less industry, fewer owls Data show effect of 1990’s listing First of two parts BY GEORGE ERB FOR PENINSULA DAILY NEWS
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
A northern spotted owl perched in a Douglas fir.
The heated debate over whether to curtail the logging of old-growth forests to protect the northern spotted owl was at full throttle when the federal government declared the bird a threatened species June 22, 1990. At the time, environmentalists
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worried that the federal plan would fall short of saving the spotted owl. Timber interests worried that a wave of environmental rules would gut the Olympic Peninsula’s wood-products industry and devastate communities. Twenty-five years later, the effects of the landmark decision can be seen in the reams of economic, industry and environmental data routinely gathered by state and federal governments. The outcomes are by turns expected, disheartening and surprising. A quarter-century of state and
federal data and studies show: ■The number of spotted owls on the Olympic Peninsula declined an estimated 40 percent between 1992 and 2006. The federal study may be updated later this year. ■Between 1988 and 2013, annual timber harvests by all public and private owners in Clallam, Grays Harbor, Jefferson and Mason counties plunged 64 percent to 753 million board feet. ■Timber harvests on the Olympic Peninsula’s federal lands plummeted 96 percent to 10.8 million board feet during the same period. In 1988, 13.2 percent of the
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region’s commercial timber came from federal lands. By 2013, the figure was 1.4 percent. ■Private timber harvests on the Olympic Peninsula plunged 61 percent to 598 million board feet during the same period. Over that time, timber companies on the Peninsula supplied between 69 percent and 92 percent of commercial logs. ■The number of wood-products mills in the Olympic Peninsula’s four counties sank 71 percent to 32 mills between 1988 and 2012. TURN
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OWL/A5
INSIDE TODAY’S PENINSULA DAILY NEWS 99th year, 146th issue — 6 sections, 74 pages
BUSINESS/POLITICS A9 B5 CLASSIFIED COMMENTARY A12, A13 C4 COUPLES C7 DEAR ABBY C8, C9 DEATHS A13 LETTERS A3 NATION A2 PENINSULA POLL TV WEEK
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