Earth Law Center Returns to Court to Protect Elwha Watershed Legacy Forests from Unlawful DNR Timber Sales

F O R I M M E D I A T E R E L E A S E 

Contacts: 

Elizabeth Dunne, Esq. edunne@earthlaw.org, (808) 554-1409, (Director of Legal Advocacy, Earth Law Center) 

Ethan Yarish, eyarish@earthlaw.org, (860) 941-5033 (Cascadia Bioregion Law Fellow, Earth Law Center) 

Howard Garrett, howard@orcanetwork.org, (360) 320-7176 (Orca Network, Center for Whale Research) 

PORT ANGELES, WA — Earth Law Center (ELC), the Center for Whale Research, and Orca Network on June 2nd filed their opening brief in Clallam County Superior Court challenging Washington State Department of Natural Resources’ approval of the Parched and Tree Well timber sales in the Elwha River watershed. The Parched sale gained national attention last year after a 40 day tree-sit intended to save the forest. The groups are asking the court to invalidate the sales, which - if allowed to move forward - would clear-cut nearly 400 acres of century-old legacy forest in one of Washington's most ecologically and culturally significant watersheds. Absent court intervention or a directive from Commissioner Upthegrove, logging could begin October 1, 2026. 

ELC—whose mission is to give Nature a voice in the legal system—teamed up with Center for Whale Research and Orca Network to file the lawsuit because of the intimate connection between forest health and the survival of the endangered Southern Resident Orcas. 

The Elwha River is also the sole source of drinking water for over 20,000 Port Angeles residents, the cultural and spiritual home of the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe since time immemorial, and the centerpiece of the second largest dam removal project in American history, which cost over $328 million in federal and state investment. A prolonged drought has already reduced Elwha flows to unprecedented low levels, prompting the City of Port Angeles to declare a Stage III Water Shortage. 

Scientists warn the region is projected to face worsening water scarcity in the coming decades—yet DNR approved these timber sales without conducting a proper analysis of how current and past logging practices negatively impact stream flows. DNR also never considered alternatives to the proposed harvest as required by a recent appellate court decision. DNR has consistently operated within a colonial framework of resource extraction, treating the forest as a commodity rather than a dynamic, living entity. 

In addition to the concerns raised in ELC’s lawsuit, the forests should be spared because they contain a rare combination of trees and plants. In August 2025, the DNR’s Natural Heritage Program conducted a site survey which identified two threatened ecosystems and one state sensitive plant within the Parched timber sale area. Under DNR’s own Policy for Sustainable Forestry, such findings mean the sale must be substantially modified, potentially resulting in its cancellation. In response to community concerns, both Senator Mike Chapman and the City of Port Angeles sent letters to DNR inquiring about the status of the sale. 

The timing could not be more significant. In 2025, with the help of advocacy efforts by ELC and the Center for Responsible Forestry, the Washington State Legislature appropriated $250,000 for DNR to conduct a formal ecological and conservation values study of the Elwha watershed with a report due to the Legislature by October 1, 2026. That study is currently underway and is designed to identify lands appropriate for conservation designation. The Parched and Tree Well stands—among the only remaining legacy forests in the lower Elwha watershed—are precisely the kind of land this study is meant to evaluate. Logging them before the study concludes would permanently foreclose the conservation outcome that the Legislature funded the study to identify. Commissioner Upthegrove has paused all new legacy forest timber sales in the Elwha Watershed. 

Community opposition to these sales, led largely by the Elwha Legacy Forests Coalition, has been broad and sustained. The City of Port Angeles has sent multiple letters regarding these and prior timber sales stating its concerns. Local hydrologists and thousands of Washington Residents have also raised concerns that DNR has repeatedly ignored. Hundreds of Lower Elwha Klallam Tribal citizens signed a Petition delivered to DNR’s offices and the Governor in person, opposing the logging and calling for protection of the watershed. The petition reads, in part: “We do not understand a way of thinking that would spend hundreds of millions on Elwha River restoration but continue to industrially log in that same watershed . . . . Our ancestral knowledge and sacred obligation to the natural world teaches us a different path.”

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©Scott F McGee/forest2sea.com (These photos & additional photos available for publication by media with no cost license. Contact Scott McGee at scott@forest2sea.com or (760) 652-9010). 

Tree Well Unit 3 (Photo by Scott McGee/Elwha Legacy Forests Coalition/Forest2Sea) 

Parched Unit 1 (Photo by Scott McGee/Elwha Legacy Forests Coalition/Forest2Sea)