Water Quality

The Quinault Water Quality Program believes that water is a life force on the Quinault Indian Nation lands. Water moves in the form of ocean, river, glacier, lake, fog, wetland, seep and spring, not to mention 120 inches of annual rain.

Three major rivers, the Queets, Raft, and Quinault, flow west from the Olympic Mountains across the Quinault Indian Nation to the ocean. For centuries villages have been raised along the banks of these rivers that provide spawning and rearing grounds for a diversity of fish including the iconic "blueback" sockeye salmon, steelhead, bull trout, coho, chinook and chum salmon.

Water is vital for:

• Drinking water
• Fishing economy
• Transportation
• Fish and wildlife habitat
• Cultural observances
• Community life and recreation

Responsibilities

The Quinault Water Quality Program monitors water quality in its rivers, in Lake Quinault and along the coast, and helps to set water quality standards on the Quinault Reservation. The Quinault Division of Natural Resources has a water quality program to help the Nation sustainably maintain cool clean water for fish, wildlife and human uses.

Some of our recent projects include:

• Removal of thousands of pounds of derelict fishing gear from the Quinault River
• Effort to tag fishing gear in order to prevent loss of equipment
• 2016-2017 water temperature and cold water refugia monitoring Lower Quinault River
• Lake assessment surveys at Lake Quinault each summer
• 2023 Stormwater monitoring study on the Quinault Reservation to look for evidence of 6PPD-
  Quinone
• Monitoring of toxic algal blooms
• 401 water quality certification on Quinault Reservation and U&A
• Queets water temperature ongoing monitoring effort

History of Floodplain Degradation

Over the past century, removal of old-growth forests and large woody debris destabilized the Quinault River floodplain and resulted in a nearly complete loss of cool, stable, off channel salmon habitat where blueback can spawn. The Upper Quinault River above Lake Quinault now comprises immature red alder growing in a shallow, braided river with few side channels.

In 2007, the Quinault Indian Nation declared that recovery of the blueback to sustainable levels was a national priority. A long-term (100-year) restoration plan for the Upper Quinault River that focuses on land acquisition and restoration projects was created. In 2008 the QDNR began engineering and constructing log jams in the Alder Creek portion of the Upper Quinault River floodplain. The massive log jams are carefully built to form natural pools and channels that salmon will use. In some cases spruce, alder or cottonwoods are planted on or along the log jams to help establish a new floodplain forest that will stabilize the river channels and sediment.