(1) GMA Goals. Maintain and enhance natural resource-based industries, including productive timber, agricultural, and fisheries industries. Encourage the conservation of productive forest lands and productive agricultural lands, and discourage incompatible uses.

Encourage the retention of open space and development of recreational opportunities, conserve fish and wildlife habitat, increase access to natural resource lands and water, and develop parks.

Encourage the involvement of citizens in the planning process and ensure coordination between communities and jurisdictions to reconcile conflicts.

Protect the environment and enhance the State’s high quality of life, including air and water quality, and the availability of water.

(2) Watershed Goals. Protect and enhance watershed resources, and reverse degradation where it has occurred.

Protect beneficial uses of water from nonpoint sources of pollution, including the effects of pathogens, chemicals, sediment, and nutrients on both surface and ground water resources.

Ensure cooperation and coordination in resource management.

(3) Flora and Fauna. The Olympic Peninsula is renowned for its extensive conifer stands of Douglas fir, Western red cedar, Sitka spruce, and Western hemlock. The fir, cedar, and spruce are the largest tree species in the watershed. Located within the conifer stands are deciduous trees: red alder, bigleaf and vine maples, willow, and black cottonwoods. They thrive in bottom land environments, particularly alongside streams, but occasionally grow elsewhere. Many locations in the higher elevations and a few locations in the lower elevations of the watershed contain special plants and plant communities. Some plants are listed by Washington State’s Natural Heritage Program as sensitive or monitor species. Vegetative cover can reduce pollutant loads, by slowing, detaining, or even absorbing quantities of bacteria, chemicals, sediment, and even heavy metals.

Many different mammals, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and insects use one or more habitats found within the watershed. Marine mammals commonly found near the shoreline include sea and river otters (also in rivers and streams), harbor seals, gray whales, and harbor porpoises. Cavity nesting ducks found in the watershed feed on animal matter in wetlands and require snags and emergent/woody vegetation in swamps. Buffers areas with large trees and woody vegetation for breeding and rearing of their young are beneficial. Many other species of birds either live entirely in the watershed or use it as a resting/feeding area during annual migrations. Many shore birds use the Port Angeles regional watershed shoreline to feed during spring and fall migrations.

(4) Streams. There are 312 miles of mapped streams within the Port Angeles regional watershed, which includes Bagley Creek, Siebert Creek, Morse Creek, Lee’s Creek, Ennis Creek, Peabody Creek, Valley Creek, Tumwater Creek, Dry Creek, and the Elwha River drainages. Most of these streams are perennial. All of these subwatersheds outlet into the Strait of Juan de Fuca or are a tributary to the Elwha River. Base flow in most area streams is maintained by springs, seeps, and wetlands. Stream corridors are influenced by the management and use of adjacent lands. The overall health of stream corridors determines the productive capabilities of wildlife and fish habitats within the corridor. Vegetation along streams reduces bank erosion and diminishes the impacts of flooding. Streamside vegetation filters nutrients and sediment from surface runoff, preventing or slowing their entry into surface or groundwater. Maintenance of stream flows is extremely important, especially during times of low precipitation. Several streams in the watershed have limited fish production because of low flows. Stream corridors within the Port Angeles regional watershed display a wide variety of conditions from densely wooded and undisturbed to heavily impacted. The Elwha River is the major river in the watershed. Federal law (PL102-495) has authorized a study for restoration of anadromous fish to this river. Clallam County does not support removal of the Elwha River dams, but should dam removal become a reality, could provide technical and educational support for the project.

(5) Marine Waters. Port Angeles regional watershed provides habitat for a variety of marine and freshwater fishes. The marine shoreline of most of the watershed is fairly steep with large cobble and rock. Nearshore habitats are important nurseries for many kinds of juvenile fish. Many commercially and recreationally important species of shellfish are found immediately offshore of the Port Angeles regional watershed. Dungeness crab, shrimp, sea cucumbers, and red sea urchins are the primary species harvested. Other species found and harvested to a limited extent are octopus, green sea urchins, squid, and pink shrimp. Subtidal commercial concentrations of geoducks and hardshell clams occur in the Strait.

Historically, the Port Angeles Harbor was a site of shellfish harvest by indigenous peoples. Port Angeles Harbor is now classified as prohibited for shellfish harvest by DOH, due to the limited intertidal areas and the nearness of pollution sources in the harbor. Regardless of their commercial harvestability or fitness for human consumption, shellfish serve an important ecological function. They filter pollutants from water, and are a food source for other creatures, such as birds, waterfowl, and marine mammals. Port Angeles Harbor is on the State 303(d) list for water bodies with limited water quality due to levels of dissolved oxygen in water and PCBs in edible fish. Net pens in the harbor are currently utilized for the commercial production of salmon.

(6) Wetlands. The Port Angeles regional watershed has a wealth of wetlands which contribute to the overall health, diversity, and function of the area. Three hundred sixty-six (366) wetlands are mapped in the Port Angeles regional watershed. The estimated acreage of deepwater in the watershed is 633 acres. Wetlands cover about four (4) percent (3,043 acres) and additional hydric soils four (4) percent (2,696 acres) of the total acreage of the watershed. Together, wetlands and additional hydric soils make up eight (8) percent of the watershed. The vast majority of wetlands are classified in the palustrine system.

Common plants in wetland areas include mosses, wire grass, reeds, cattails, rushes, willows, sedges, and many other water-loving plants. According to the Washington Natural Heritage Program, the Olympic Peninsula has the greatest diversity in kinds of wetlands of any place in western Washington, and Peninsula wetlands support more rare plants than any other part of the State.

(7) Aquifers. Groundwater withdrawals for both industrial and domestic use occur in the watershed (Morse Creek, Elwha River). Aquifers are naturally recharged by precipitation falling over a region, and by surface water infiltration. In the Port Angeles watershed, most recharge may be attributed to fractured rock areas in the mountains (especially since precipitation is greater in the higher elevations) and flat areas with gravel or alluvial deposits. Because it is an “invisible” resource, we know little about the quantity of water available for beneficial uses, about the quality of water underground, or how it moves through the watershed. Available groundwater quality information for the watershed is limited to monitoring conducted at active and inactive landfills, and that conducted by public water systems utilizing wells.