HOH RESERVATION, Wash. — It chews, it gnaws and
jumps around, avulsing in a tantrum of energy to new channels, taking
anything in its way right along with it. 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 48.
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
Most usable land on the reservation is within the
100-year flood plain of the river, making economic development even
harder for this tribe battered by high unemployment and poverty.
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.
While only a small piece of land, it is crucial to
the Hoh because it would connect the tribe’s existing parcels into a
contiguous swath of usable land. The tribe has plans for a new future
on that land, from building housing for its people, to creating a
publicly accessible trail from
The bill that would transfer the parkland to the
tribe would prohibit logging or hunting on the parcel, today in
second-growth forest and an important wildlife corridor. The tribe also
would be prohibited from developing a casino on the property.
Written in collaboration between the tribe and the National Park Service, the bill is sponsored in the House by Rep.
The measure was introduced more than a year ago, but the tribe still is
waiting for approval of the legislation — and nervously waiting out
another winter flood season.
area. To many tribal members, the Hoh is not the river they knew
growing up. It floods more often and more violently, partly a result of
various government agencies hardening river banks off the reservation
for erosion control, and timber companies cutting the uplands, tribal
members say.
“It’s not the river,” said
Leitka came to the Hoh in the 1950s, when there was
no road to the reservation, no running water and no electricity. Tribal
members depended on the river for everything from the water they drank
to the fish they ate, even transportation: Leitka used to take a canoe
to get to school.
“It was our life,” she said of the Hoh. It still is.
a member of the tribal council, recently blazed upriver in an open boat
throwing a roostertail of spray. Tribal Chairwoman
Penn slowed the boat, easing it to a beach where the
river meets the sea. As dusk fell and fog slinked in from the Pacific,
he loaded the boat on a trailer in front of a home abandoned because of
repeated flooding — another monument to the power of the river.
As he secured the boat, Lopez said she hopes for a
more stable future for her tribe. Based not on straitjacketing a river
that won’t be tamed, but on getting out of its way.
“I’m ready to watch the community grow,” Lopez said. “We’ve been in the flood zone for so long.”
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