"Olympic National Park officials should quickly respond to the Quileute's closure of a park-beach access trail by finding a way to help the tiny tribe on Washington's coast with its long-standing boundary issue.

The Quileute and the park need to break through the access-road stalemate. The solution should include the reopening of Second Beach, which is accessed through the reservation; and the Quileute should gain some developable land that will allow the tribe to address its concerns of crowding, flooding and the real threat of a tsunami. The Quileute say the park's boundaries on the northern end of the reservation were drawn with a survey from 1914, but that a survey from 1881 should have been used. That's because a storm in 1910 shifted the mouth of the Quillayute River, which was the reservation boundary, southward.

The Quileute want to be compensated, with land elsewhere, for the intruding boundary that gobbled up about 315 acres. Constant flooding in the lower village and last year's tsunami in Southeast Asia have also prompted the Quileute to want land on higher ground."

Get the Story:
Editorial: Find a path for tiny Quileute tribe (The Seattle Times 10/13)

Relevant Links:
Quileute Tribe, National Resources - http://www.quileutetribe.org
Olympic National Park - http://www.nps.gov/olym

Related Stories:
Quileute Tribe to meet over park boundary dispute (10/12)
Quileute Tribe, National Park Service in dispute (10/5)