At the End of the Highway, At the Edge of the Sea

Taholah, the Quinault Indian Nation, and Planned Relocation

By Corey Griffis

Introduction

On March 10th, 2016, following a severe rainstorm, the churn of the Pacific Ocean rose above the seawall separating the mouth of the Quinault River from the tribal village of Taholah. Sonny Curley, a member of the Quinault Indian Nation (QIN), was able to canoe through the streets atop the floodwaters. It was the eighth major incident of coastal flooding in just fifteen years. Taholah is well-accustomed to the dangers posed by the sea. Many tribal stories warn of flood disasters born of severe weather, as well as the danger posed by tidal waves— the submersal emanations from earthquakes along the Cascadian Subduction Zone. These are realities of life at the mouth of the Quinault. However, beginning in the early twenty-first century, climate change has elevated the frequency and severity of flooding in Taholah. Community members have also become increasingly concerned about the Lower Village’s vulnerability to tidal waves and ability to operate on a self-sufficient basis in the interim between a potential disaster and relief efforts. Beginning in 2012, the QIN’s governing council responded by initiating a community outreach process, Noskiakos, with the goal of gauging citizen concerns about climate and weather, as well as what potential solutions they considered viable.

In 2013, underpinned by information gathered during the Noskiakos process and operating with the aid of a $700,000 grant from the Administration for Native Americans (ANA), the QIN began to develop formal plans for the near-total relocation of the Lower Village. The Taholah Village Master Relocation Plan (TVMRP) was adopted by the QIN in 2017, after which efforts were accelerated to secure implementational funding.

Currently, the estimated cost of relocation is $150-200 million, a sum that greatly exceeds both short-term and long-term allocatable tribal resources. Thus far, little to no significant external funding has been secured. Far from being a solely contemporary matter, climate change and the necessity of climate adaptation are historical realities for the Quinault. Taholah’s experiences with natural disaster and climate change are illustrative of the historical roots of climate vulnerability and obstacles to climate adaptation, and exemplify how colonial and neocolonial development continue to hamper Indigenous efforts to strengthen the integrity of place-based cultural heritage. Quinault visions for relocation and climate adaptation have not been matched by action from state and federal bureaucracies that operate over extended timeframes and within colonialist frameworks of governance. Because of this, and because of a lack of federal political willpower, the community’s existential struggle has not been addressed as the as the emergency that it is. Consequently, Taholah’s efforts to adapt to a changing climate sit at the intersection of practical contradictions between minimal responsibility and maximum vulnerability, low means and high needs, and sufficient awareness and insufficient resources. These contradictions are of existential and material relevance to the Quinault and other communities at the forefront of climate vulnerability.

Changed and Changing: Taholah’s Geography, Climate, and Disaster Vulnerabilities

Taholah sits at the terminus of Washington State Highway 109, at the mouth of the Quinault River on the western coast of North America. The village is divided into a lower portion, which is currently the location of most community infrastructure,housing, and essential services; and a lightly developed upper portion about one hundred feet above sea level, most of which has been set aside for eventual relocation. As of 2017, 660 people live in the Lower Village at Taholah, with another 200 living in the Upper Village; this accounts for approximately 60 percent of the reservation population and 20 percent of tribal membership. Since time immemorial, Taholah’s current location at the mouth of the Quinault River was home to a seasonal Quinault encampment, originally known as Kwi’nail. People circulated throughout many such encampments along the river, with families establishing “semipermanent structures where resources could be consistently harvested.” Taholah’s permanent settlement can be traced back to the latter half of the 1800s, beginning in 1856 when the Quinault and Quileute tribes acceded to treaty with the territorial government of Washington. These treaty negotiations were carried out in a “highly suspect” manner; it is unlikely that tribal representatives understood themselves to be relinquishing much of their traditional homelands to Western notions of property and usage.

The 1856 treaty originally set aside 10,000 acres for a reservation, which encompassed Taholah and its immediate surroundings. However, boundaries were not finalized until Nov. 4th, 1873, when President Ulysses S. Grant set them at approximately 200,000 acres via executive order. This redrawing occurred due to the federal government’s decision to remove the Hoh and Queets tribes, and some of the Chehalis, Chinook, and Cowlitz peoples from their own traditional territories and consolidate them onto the Quinault Reservation. The federal government forcibly removed aforesaid tribes to the Quinault Reservation in 1874. Crucially, the reservation included areas that white surveyors had described as “unfit for settlement or cultivation” and thus dispensable to tribal usage. Surveyors also noted that the Quinault insisted upon continued access to the coastline, a place imbued with both cultural significance and resource wealth.

In November 1912, the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) ordered that Taholah be platted and established as a permanent settlement. Samuel P. Matthews, the principal surveyor, platted the town from 1913 to 1914 and described the existing seasonal village as “densely wooded,” with the exception of the portions at the mouth of the Quinault. The BIA constructed the permanent village plot “on estuary soils and fill,” the latter eventually deposited into the small slough at the mouth of the Quinault. Structures built on these kinds of unstable soils are much more vulnerable to subsidence and flooding; they are also prime for severe liquefaction in the event of an earthquake.

While certain safety considerations could not be made by the BIA at the time that Taholah was plotted — the Cascadia Subduction Zone was not considered a source of major earthquakes until the 1990s — there was ample precedent for relegating Indians to settlement in unsafe conditions. Around 1893, for instance, a number of Native individuals and families took up year-round residence on a small island along the Seattle waterfront, Ballast Island, formed from debris dumped by trading vessels. By virtue of its undesirability, the island was “one of the few places in town where large groups of Indians were tolerated.” The BIA’s decision to forcibly implement the burdens of modern construction on estuarial soils and fill represents similar willful unconcern. Mark Mobbs, an environmental scientist with the Quinault Fisheries Department, commented in 2017 that many of the streets in the Lower Village have “been elevated by 10 feet of gravel since 1930,” an indication that coastal and estuarial flooding were problems immediately after the village was plotted and the land leveled. Presently, portions of several streets in the Lower Village are below sea level, protected from more frequent and severe submersion by a 2,000 foot long seawall, which has required repairs on several occasions in the last three decades. Even minor flooding has caused significant damage to residential structures and property in the Lower Village, including the uprooting of mobile rooms. It is common for flooding to carry peoples’ belongings and garbage over the seawall, with the remnants strewn across the beach or swept out by the tides. Since the establishment of Taholah as a permanent settlement in 1914, regional and global warming trends have induced considerable changes in Taholah’s local environment and climate; these changes have been deleterious to the safety and cultural traditions of the community. While it is difficult to pinpoint precise figures due to significant intra-regional variations and the limited availability of historical data, it is well accepted that average intra-annual temperatures in the Pacific Northwest have increased by close to 1.5°F since the 1920’s. Aggregate climate modeling of the broader Pacific Northwest predicts an average annual temperature increase of 3.2 °F by the 2040s and 5.3 °F by the 2080s under a low to moderate emissions scenario, but the range of increase spans anywhere between 2.8-9.7 °F by the end of the 21st century.

Other generally applicable climate forecasts for the Pacific Northwest include drier summers and wetter winters, soil oversaturation, reduced summer streamflow due to continual glacial melt and a lack of accumulated snowpack, exacerbated coastal erosion as a result of higher winter tides, increased vulnerability to wildfires, more intense and frequent winter/spring precipitation events, and the likelihood of climate-enhanced deforestation. Local tectonic uplift along the Olympic Peninsula coastline makes it difficult to establish firm expectations for sea level rise, but a range between 8 and 50 inches by 2100 is likely. Any degree of sea level rise would significantly increase Taholah’s already precarious vulnerability to coastal flooding, riverine flooding, and shoreline erosion.

The already-existent consequences of the past century of anthropogenic climate change are well-illustrated by the disappearance of Anderson Glacier, the historical headwaters of the Quinault River. Circa 1927, Anderson Glacier extended for 1.2 miles down the mountainside; by 1950, it had steadily retreated 0.6 miles; and, by 2005, the glacier was relict, disappearing altogether by 2009. In tandem with the melting of Anderson Glacier and other Olympic glaciers, hotter, drier summers and decreased snowpack have reduced summer streamflow —and those remaining are warmer due to a lack of glacial cooling. This has rendered the Quinault River a suboptimal habitat for blueback salmon, a traditional food source. Salmon runs have been further impacted by changes in coastal rainfall patterns; rains have been falling at higher elevations earlier in the summer, accelerating the melt of a dwindling snowpack and sloughing off larger amounts of silt, which clogs the gills of fish.

Historical blueback salmon populations along the Quinault numbered in the millions and remained as high as a quarter of a million in the 1950s. However, by 2007, the annual number of blueback returning to spawn was not more than 5,000. In 2015, the QIN closed down commercial Coho fisheries until further notice due to a low spawning forecast; in 2018, 2019, and 2020, the fisheries remained shuttered due to conservation concerns. Many tribe members are concerned that salmon numbers will never sufficiently recover, jeopardizing traditional subsistence and employment opportunities.

Tribal members are also concerned about coastal erosion. Since 1967, the beach immediately west of Taholah has eroded at an average annual rate of approximately 1 foot and 7 inches, with isolated sections of beach disappearing at rates as high as 4 feet annually. Fawn Sharp, President of the QIN since 2006, noted that Taholah “used to have a beach that was the size of a football field.” Presently, the beach extends seaward for a fraction of that length.

In addition to climatic vulnerabilities, the Lower Village is squarely located in the Cascadian tsunami inundation zone. In the event of a major Cascadian earthquake (M8.2+), residents in the Lower Village would have between fifteen and twenty minutes to evacuate prior to the arrival of a tidal wave that would consume the Lower Village beneath as much as forty feet of water. Most of the villagers, many of whom are either elderly or young, would require between ten and twenty minutes to reach safety. It is unlikely that they would receive ample warning, especially at nighttime, or that they would be operating under ideal mobility conditions. These risks are exacerbated by the possibility of tectonic slippage in the event of a M9.0+ earthquake, which could result in the entire western shoreline of the Olympic Peninsula dropping by upwards of six feet.

Residents are also concerned about the potential impact of a major earthquake on vulnerable critical infrastructure, including power, sewage, the water lines that run across the Quinault River, and Highway 109. Because of Taholah’s small size and rural location, the village would likely be among the last to receive external assistance in the aftermath of a quake and tsunami. As such, tribal leadership has prioritized the stockpiling of resources and the development of emergency procedures in the event of a prolonged period of disaster-induced isolation. The question that the Quinault have asked themselves is not if a Cascadian earthquake and tidal wave will one day destroy the Lower Village, but when that day will come. Estimating with exactitude is impossible, but the likelihood of a M8.2+ earthquake occurring in the next fifty years has been pinged at about one-in-three. The likelihood of a M9.0+ earthquake occurring in that same timeframe is slightly higher than one-in-six. In sum, Taholah’s geographic location and status as a community historically built on fill render it particularly vulnerable to a diverse array of natural disasters. Climate change has already exacerbated this vulnerability in the last century, leading to more frequent and severe flooding, the melting of Anderson Glacier, and the endangerment of local salmon runs.

Planned Relocation: A Communal Discussion and Experience

The Quinault have been conscious of disaster and climate vulnerabilities for some time. In 1996, for instance, the QIN relocated tribal government offices to the Upper Village to safeguard against potential tsunami inundation. However, the prospect of relocating the entire village emerged following a series of adverse weather events that occurred in and around Taholah in the first decade of the twenty-first century. On Nov. 15th, 2001, heavy rains led to flooding; similar flooding recurred on June 28th, 2002; in October of 2003; in January of 2005; and in January of 2006, the latter of which merited a gubernatorial disaster declaration. These floods were induced by heavy seasonal rainfall, exacerbated by sea level rise, land subsidence, and higher winter/ spring water levels along the Quinault. Several floods led to temporary road closures, and in March of 2007, a saturation landslide rendered Highway 109 impassable for almost 24 hours. Because of Taholah’s isolated location along the coast, Highway 109 is the only route of unburdened access. The only other points of entry are logging roads that wind through the reservation’s forests and clear-cut stands; these roads are labyrinthine, unpaved, narrow, and vulnerable to oversaturation during heavy rains. Not all are maintained, and many are cordoned off. Thus, no reliable emergency access or exit route exists outside of Highway 109, which would be destroyed or blocked indefinitely by a major earthquake and/or tidal wave.In 2006, plans were formulated to build a tsunami-safe school in the Upper Village, and the tribe was able to obtain a $1.1 million grant to abrogate critical structural deficiencies. However, funding did not materialize, and the K-12 school remained in the Lower Village. Relocation of the Lower Village emerged as a topic of serious informal conversation and was further bolstered by the M9.1 2011 Tohoku earthquake in Japan: within twenty-four hours of the earthquake, transoceanic tsunami remnants struck the mouth of the Quinault, flooding parts of the Lower Village and depositing debris on Taholah’s shorelines. Michael Cardwell, who oversaw the QIN’s relocation efforts as of 2016, described the event as “a real eye-opener” for the community.

Tribal elders have played a major role in spurring community reflection and action. Because of their longevity, older members of the QIN are able to connect climate change and observable alterations in the landscapes and environments they knew as children. Elders also possess oral histories and myths that apply heft to the possibility of major earthquakes and flooding; one such Quinault legend, recounted by Clarence Pickernell, speaks of “a great trembling and rumbling of the mountains,” stirred up by the demon Seatco. After observing the tribes of the Olympic Peninsula gathering to exchange goods, Seatco, “without reason,” became indiscriminately angry and “caused the earth and water to swallow the people.” Through recounting such myths and sharing their understanding of what the surrounding landscape looked like in their childhoods and times before their own, tribal elders emphasize the pertinent pace of major environmental changes and introduce a sense of urgency into discussions, such as those carried out in the Noskiakos process.

In 2012, as a response to community concerns about tsunami risks and increased coastal and riverine flooding, the leadership of the QIN initiated Noskiakos, a process of community outreach named after a former village at the mouth of the Quinault River. At the time, few examples of large-scale climate relocation existed for the QIN to look to as models. The intent of Noskiakos was to gauge public concerns, gather ideas for disaster risk reduction and relocation, and determine what people saw as community priorities. Public input was central—slides presented at various public Noskiakos meetings articulated a belief that “the community is the expert.” Several initial priorities emerged during these early Noskiakos forums, including the relocation of programs and services aimed at youth and seniors, the relocation of emergency services, and continued access to traditional beaches and recreational sites.

Following the first set of Noskiakos meetings, QIN leadership began formally planning for the relocation of the Lower Village. A largely undeveloped 200+ acre lot in the Upper Village was selected as a relocation site; the site was at a higher elevation that lies outside of both the tsunami inundation zone and the 100-year floodplain. In 2013, the tribe received a $700,000 Social and Economic Development Strategies planning grant from the Administration for Native Americans (ANA), an agency within the Department of Health and Human Services. This grant was used to formulate the eventual Taholah Village Relocation Master Plan (TVMRP), assembled by the Quinault Planning Department, South Sound Geotechnical, Chehalis Valley Associates, and Kaul Design Associates.

In January of 2014, storm erosion necessitated the addition of further riprap to the seawall that protects the western portion of the Lower Village. Originally built in the 1970s, the seawall, the seawall had previously required repair in 1975 and 1994 after tidal flooding. A second series of storm events in early March of 2014 caused further damage. QIN leadership requested an emergency repair from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which completed temporary reinforcement from March 28th30th. However, the repair “did not remedy the undermining, which continues to threaten the stability” of the seawall. In January of 2015, intense rains produced a 100-year flood event that inundated parts of the Lower Village, causing landslides, road closures, culvert failures, and washouts, nearly compromising Taholah’s sewage treatment operations. Further severe flooding occurred in early 2016. First Avenue, which runs parallel to the river, began to flood regularly even during minor storms.

Concurrent with this series of breaches and unsuccessful repairs, the collective membership of the tribe passed a General Council Resolution in support of relocation, and a second wave of Noskiakos outreach was initiated. This second wave included door-to-door contacts, online surveys, and five open-attendance community meetings between April 2014 and 2015. These meetings focused on sketching out community visions for what a fully-realized Upper Village might look like, so as to guide the development of the TVMRP. Community members were also shown work-in-progress land plans and preliminary concepts, which were the subject of public comment periods. Key to this second wave of outreach was determining “how best to translate the culture of the Lower Village to the Upper Village.” Suggestions included the incorporation of traditional art into new developments; the construction of recreational spaces, salmon baking pits; and the allocation of public plots for growing basket-weaving materials. Given the environmental tenuity of certain aspects of Quinault cultural heritage, such as plots for growing basket-weaving materials. Given the environmental tenuity of certain aspects of Quinault cultural heritage, such as razor clam harvesting and salmon fisheries, the prioritization of cultural maintenance and revivification in planning for the proposed Upper Village reflected a desire by the Quinault to retain and strengthen facets of their tribal culture.

Although the Noskiakos process ended with a communal decision to continue formal relocation planning, this conclusion was a bittersweet one. Fawn Sharp said that, while the tribe “sees the exciting opportunity of creating a new village,” there was “a lot of trauma at the prospect that a very sacred site could no longer exist.” For example, it is held among the Quinault that some of the spirits of departed ancestors wander the beaches. Should those beaches disappear, Sharp says “They’d have no place. They’d be underwater.” These experiences of spiritual loss in the context of environmental damages have been conceptualized by psychologists in recent years as solastalgia, an emergent term that has proven particularly salient to describing the experiences of Indigenous peoples who are grappling with frontline climate effects and the challenge of determining how to both mitigate harms and adapt to changes which have become inevitable.

In general, younger members of the tribe expressed greater willingness to relocate to the Upper Village. Anthony Hobucket, who worked at the QIN Housing Authority, said that a lot of Lower Village residences “are so run down and old, there’s a lot of excitement around getting people into newer houses.” However, many elders who helped raise communal awareness refuse to personally relocate even as they acknowledge the necessity of a new village site. James DeLaCruz Sr., whose home lay adjacent to Taholah’s seawall, said in 2014 that “The Lower Village has been a part of my life as long as I can remember and this is where my home is until nature changes that.” Larry Bradley, another elder, also prefers to stay, saying in 2016 that he “would probably be gone by the time a big wave comes along.”

Don Capoeman, another elder living by the river, said in 2016: “I like to watch things wind down the river in wintertime, see all the big snags and trees. I just like watching the river. Whether it’s here or on the news, I like to watch Mother Nature take its course. Even if it was a tsunami. That wouldn’t make no difference to me. Even if it came to take me away.” Younger members of the tribe largely respect the decisions of their elders. Clint Underwood, whose father lived in a home near the water, feels “pretty good” about relocation, but knows that his dad “won’t move…. [J]ust like a captain and his ship, I guess.” Younger residents nonetheless want to ensure that enough housing is built in the Upper Village to accommodate the elders, should some who refuse to move ultimately decide otherwise.

For some in the tribe, the prospect of relocation represents a continuation of ages-old patterns: an epochal rhyme in the history of the Quinault as a people. Michael Cardwell connects Taholah’s present efforts to relocate with the tribe’s long history of inhabitation at the mouth of the Quinault. Thousands of years ago, when sea levels were lower and much of the Salish Sea region was covered in the ice sheets of the Last Glacial Maximum, the coastline at Taholah extended many miles westward from where it currently rests. Only when the Cordilleran glaciers melted at the end of the last Ice Age did the shoreline retreat inland to its current location. With this history in mind, Cardwell says that “Our creation story has us arriving at the mouth of this river, but the mouth hasn’t been in the same spot since time immemorial…. [W]e have always been here, in this spot. Moving inland and upland seems to be our survival strategy since time immemorial.” Though the impetus behind modern relocation is accelerated by anthropogenic climate change, rather than extended natural cycles of warming and cooling, the called-for solution is similar to those of the Quinault ancestors. Even amongst the elders who refuse to personally relocate, there is an acknowledgement of what is necessary to ensure the future of the tribe.

Planned Relocation: Obstacles and their Roots

The formal Taholah Village Master Relocation Plan (TVMRP) was completed and adopted by the QIN on June 26th, 2017, after more than four years of development and community input. However, QIN leadership considered it prudent to interrogate potential obstacles to implementation prior to the completion of the active TVMRP planning process. On March 24th, 2015, Fawn Sharp, President of the Quinault Indian Nation, testified before the United States House of Representatives Appropriations Subcommittee on the Interior regarding relocation. As part of her testimony, she declared that “the Lower Village is no longer a safe place for the Quinault.” Paramount among the concerns she expressed on behalf of the QIN were the reclamation of 246 acres of fractionated allotments in the Upper Village and the procurement of necessary project funding, without which relocation could not be practically achieved.

-Fractionated lands-

Land fractionation on the Quinault Reservation began in 1905 and 1933. Most allotments were sized at 80 acres. Federal allotment policies ended in 1934 following the passage of the Indian Reorganization Act (IRA), but almost all Quinault reservation lands had been distributed prior to this date. These allotments were held in trust by the U.S. government and distributed primarily to individual tribal landowners, although the federal government deemed a large number of allotments “surplus” and sold them off to nontribal individuals and corporations.

Per allotment policies, individual ownership of parcels could not be inherited singularly: if an individual owner, for instance, had three children, then ownership of the parcel de jure passed to all three of them in equal proportion, and so forth with all following descendants. This process was known as fractionation, and it occurred exponentially both before and after the passage of the IRA, sometimes resulting in over one-hundred undivided individual interests in a single 80- acre allotment tract. This meant that while a single 80-acre tract could be owned by dozens of individuals with equal undivided interests, the physical tract itself remained at 80 acres and could not be legally utilized for any purpose without agreement from all interest-holders. Individuals could sell their interest to non-Native buyers, who often acquired shares cheaply from Indians with little else to their name. Allotments divided the land, but by forcing individuals to make choices between personal interests and the integrity of the tribal land base, “they also divided the Quinaults as the tribal land base, “they also divided the Quinaults as a people.” Many fractional allotments fell into disuse, with heirs often not knowing that they held an interest; other allotments were converted from trust to fee-patent under the Burke Act of 1906, after which they were often sold to nontribal individuals and logging corporations. Grays Harbor County became a center of the global timber trade during the 1910s and 1920s; fractionation and fee-patenting on the timber-rich Quinault reservation accelerated during this time period. The QIN struggled to acquire communal capital to reclaim fractionated allotments and repair their degraded land base, and often had to “immediately sell any timber on the parcel to cover the purchase price.”

The below graph compares the proportional status of Quinault lands in 1988 and 2014. In 1988, approximately 27.5 percent of Quinault reservation lands remained in ‘fee’ status, often owned by non-Native logging corporations, while approximately 67 percent were held by the BIA in ‘trust’ status. Many ‘trust’ allotments were held as undivided fractional interests, owned by individuals of tribal and non-tribal heritage. In 1988, the QIN directly owned 11,768 acres of reservation land, or approximately 6 percent of total acreage. This proportion quintupled between 1988 and 2014: including off-reservation acquisitions, total land acreage under direct QIN ownership almost sextupled. Both the proportion and total amount of land under fee-patent status were halved in this same period, while the tribal land base increased by 12,041 acres. Much of this new acreage was added on the north side of the Queets River at the northern edge of the reservation, the result of a long-term reservation boundary dispute which was resolved in 1988 in favor of the Quinault. A small but significant off-reservation addition included property in Ocean Shores, WA, where the tribe opened the Quinault Beach Resort and Casino (QBRC) in May 2000.

In 2015, 246 acres of fractionated land remained in the relocation zone; this accounted for most of the Upper Village. During congressional testimony on March 24th, 2015, Fawn Sharp announced that the QIN planned to use land buy-back funds from the Cobell v. Salazar settlement to acquire said allotments and estimated that “this process alone will take up to 18 months per parcel due to BIA requirements.” Land allotments on the Quinault Indian Reservation were originally made in 80- acre parcels; thus, under Sharp’s estimates, the bureaucratic process of shepherding 246 acres of fractionated interests through the BIA would have taken more than four years.

On September 15th, 2015, the Quinault Indian Nation signed an agreement with the U.S. Department of the Interior which provided the QIN with $19 million to acquire reservation fee lands. Sharp described the settlement as “far short of what is needed” to fully consolidate the QIN’s fractionated land base, but noted that it would purchase roughly 7,000-8,000 acres. In addition to acquiring land in the relocation zone, these funds were used to purchase land viable for economic development, such as fee-patented timber reserves.

In 2016, Michael Cardwell indicated that tribal leadership had considered a much more expedient process to attain land for relocation: eminent domain. However, Cardwell noted that because of the long history of state and federal governments seizing tribal land without permission, “people are not excited about that prospect.” Cardwell also explained that many tribal allotment owners were reluctant to part with their interests, hoping to eventually secure a lucrative timber buyout. Such buyouts, Cardwell said, could provide “several hundred thousand dollars”—a deeply appealing prospect for the many interest owners who had “little more than the trees growing on those plots.”

In strict terms of the 246 acres of fractionated interests in the relocation zone, land fractionation ultimately proved an encumbrance rather than a prohibitive element. By the time that the formal TVMRP was adopted by the QIN in late 2017, the QIN either outright owned or exercised majority interest of all allotments within the relocation zone. As of 2019, only small portions remain under the title of individual landowners. However, over half of total reservation lands fall under fee-patent ownership or are held in trust, greatly hampering the ability of the QIN to develop natural resources and restore habitats within reservation boundaries.

-Project Funding-

Even prior to the Quinault Indian Nation’s adoption of the Taholah Master Relocation Plan (TVMRP) in late 2017, the QIN faced obstacles completing adjacent projects. An example was the 2013 Taholah Education Center Master Plan (TECMP), which proposed a new K-12school in the Upper Village. The TECMP concluded that the project was ineligible for BIA funding; furthermore, the estimated cost of the new construction exceeded the investment capacity of any single federal agency. The TECMP thus concluded that “the only viable option… would be special federal financial assistance through Congress.” Twenty-five miles south of Taholah, the majority-white Ocosta School District was able to construct a new $15.8 million tsunami-safe elementary school capped by a public evacuation shelter; $13.8 million was raised via a local bond issue that passed by a vote of 70 percent to 30 percent. The Ocosta measure was passed in April 2013, and Ocosta’s tsunami-safe school was opened in June 2016.

In 2014 and 2016, preliminary estimates pinged the cost of relocating the Lower Village at around $65 million. This estimate was later revised upwards significantly; while the TVMRP did not include a holistic estimate of relocation costs, the plan estimated construction of a new tsunami-safe K-12 school in the Upper Village would cost $48 million, ballparked a new community center at $20 million, and provided a detailed estimate of $50 million in infrastructure costs and labor. These three components totaled $118 million, not including new housing units. Estimates valued the collective residential and governmental properties in the Lower Village at approximately $29 million as of 2016; conservatively assuming no increase in the value of relocated infrastructure, this brings the prospective relocation cost to about $145 million. This $145 million estimate is in line with recent estimates given by Fawn Sharp and other QIN leaders. It is also entirely beyond the capacity of the QIN to muster alone.

As recently as 2008, the annual QIN tribal budget was $50,000 — a pittance in comparison to the total requisite funding needed for relocation. Since the early 2000s, the QIN has made efforts to expand these revenues via investment in the hospitality and service sectors, but has been challenged by climate-linked declines in the regional timber market and tribal seafood operations. These efforts have only found significant success in the last decade; as of 2017, the QIN was the largest employer in Grays Harbor County, employing 1,400 people. By that same year, the annual tribal budget had multiplied exponentially to more than $10 million. However, an annual budget of $10 million divided by about 3,000 tribal members amounts to approximately $3,333 in per capita tribal government spending—for comparison, Washington state’s annual per capita spending in 2017 was $10,341.

Furthermore, as of 2015, the QIN spent “$4.4 million annually to supplement lapses in Federal funding” 2015, the QIN spent “$4.4 million annually to supplement lapses in Federal funding” for basic services and administrative obligations, and, in total, fell about $30 million short of fully providing for the community’s annual essential needs. Because of these shortfalls, “people suffer,” Sharp said; accordingly, most new QIN revenues have been allocated to community services like education and healthcare, and to tribal businesses such as the QBRC and a pair of successful supermarkets in Aberdeen. Even with an annual tribal budget of $10 million, stockpiling excess revenues for relocation would require decades of extreme fiscal austerity, necessitating untenable cuts to already underfunded services. As such, tribal leadership has judged it more prudent to seek external sources of funding.

Like many Indigenous communities in the United States, Taholah has suffered from systemic historical discrimination, exclusion, and exploitation—all of which have inhibited the accrual of communal capital. Taholah is also a very small community, with a combined Lower and Upper Village population of 860; the Quinault tribe has 3,000 enrolled members. As of 2018, individuals living on the Quinault Reservation had an average per capita income of $16,766, while about 26 percent lived below the poverty line. As such, tax revenues raised internally by the tribe are fundamentally insufficient to provide for essential needs, much less relocation: though relocation is a local solution, without a wealthy economic base it requires supra-local quantities of funding.

There is also a matter of simple principle. The United States, Fawn Sharp noted in 2016, became wealthy and powerful “off the rich and vast resources of this continent. So, they’re not paying for our services. We prepaid a century and a half ago. And it was a sacred agreement that in exchange, those services be provided in perpetuity.” It is the view of many Quinault that relocating Taholah is an urgent matter that deserves the respect and resources of the federal government, rather than prolonged, unrealistic fiscal austerity on behalf of the tribe.

However, many prospective sources of funding are competitive and piecemeal. The TVMRP draft included a list of twenty-three potential federal and state funding sources, many of which are loan-based, rather than grant-based, and most of which are small and hyper-specific, such as a $25,000 Washington Department of Health grant for the exploration of backup well sites. Other potential grants cover partial expenses on condition of grantee match dollars or include stipulations that infringe on tribal sovereignty to make future land use decisions. Because many potential sources of funding are oriented towards a single purpose, the QIN would have to obtain a patchwork of separate specific grants that collectively fulfill the complex needs of relocation. Managing applications, deadlines, stipulations, oversight, and various other bureaucratic processes requires time and resources the Quinault do not have.

Congressional funding, though more encompassing, requires political willpower that does not yet exist. For instance: on June 6th, 2015, in consultation with the QIN and other coastal tribes, U.S. Representative Derek Kilmer (D-WA-6) introduced the Tribal Coastal Resiliency Act (TCRA). The TCRA would have opened Department of Commerce grant funding to Indian tribes for climate change adaptation projects, such as the TECMP and TVRMP. While the BIA provides $10 million each year for tribal climate resilience planning, Fawn Sharp has said that this is “not much when spread among more than 500 tribes.,” and little other substantive government funding for tribal climate adaptation exists. The TCRA was co-sponsored on a bipartisan basis and received subcommittee hearings before dying on the floor of the House. Reintroduced in the 2019 session as the Coastal and Great Lakes Communities Enhancement Act, it passed the House by a vote of 262 - 151 before being sent to the Senate, where it was read twice and died in Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s “legislative graveyard.”

The Quinault have also sought funding through state-level carbon taxation. In 2016, Washington voters rejected I-732, a state ballot initiative that would have levied a revenue-neutral carbon tax on businesses; I-732 had been opposed by the Quinault, several environmental groups, as well as Governor Jay Inslee, on grounds of being insufficient address to the emissions problem. Afterwards, the QIN became a leading advocate for I-631, a stronger carbon tax measure including language that required at least 35 percent of proposed carbon tax revenues to “provide direct and meaningful benefits” to tribes or areas designated by the Washington Department of Health as “health action areas,” in addition to requiring 10 percent of revenue investments be derived from tribe-sponsored or tribe-oriented resolutions. I-631 was projected to raise $2 billion in revenue over the first five years, with increasing returns afterwards. Unlike I-732, I-631 received broad support from environmental groups, labor unions, and Governor Jay Inslee; both measures began with a carbon tax of $15 per metric ton, but whereas I-732 had been perceived as too lenient and focused on revenue-neutrality at the cost of expansivity and intensity, I-631 aimed to levy a carbon tax that progressed more quickly and provided additional revenues to fund environmental programs.

Theresa Sheldon, an activist and member of the Tulalip tribe, summed up the impetus behind Indigenous support for the measure, saying that “Native Peoples are like the canary birds in the coalmines… we’re seeing that in gathering our cedar, gathering our huckleberries, we’re seeing the change in the seasons happen and the change in our plants.” The Western States Petroleum Association spent ~$31 million to oppose the initiative; one-third of this funding came from BP America, which argued that the initiative both imposed a “permanently escalating” burden on commerce and did not go far enough in that “six of the state’s top 10 carbon emitters would be exempt.” I-631 campaigners claimed this argument was misleading, given that those six emitters included supposedly carbon-neutral wood emissions facilities and non-fossil fuel emitters, as well as the TransAlta coal plant in Centralia, which was already scheduled to be shuttered in 2025. Other arguments against the initiative centered around the likelihood of higher consumer utility payments and gas prices.

Despite $15 million in pro-measure spending and the support of Washington state’s executive leadership, I-631 was rejected by a vote of 56.56 percent to 43.44 percent. Describing the defeat, Fawn Sharp said: “It feels incredibly oppressive in that we are doing everything we can to be good stewards and yet there are all these others who are just polluting and corrupting and exploiting, and they are continuing to buy licenses to do so. It’s unfair. And we feel powerless.”

Both the President and Vice President of the QIN testified before Congress to request federal relocation funding on multiple occasions between 2015 and 2019. However, during the Trump administration, QIN lobbying efforts often had to focus on avoiding the total elimination of funding for existing BIA Programs, such as the Housing Improvement Plan to assist tribal members living in substandard residential conditions. As of 2022, a total of $500,000 of federal expenditures have been made to support relocation. In 2016, Fawn Sharp had expressed her hope that Taholah would be fully relocated within five years, by 2021.

Conclusions

In the last century, Taholah’s residents have experienced drastic changes in their physical, ecological, and climatic environment. These changes include beach erosion, the decline or disappearance of native species, the melting of mountain glaciers, accelerated land subsidence in the Lower Village, and increased incidence of coastal and riverine flooding. Ongoing climate change will exacerbate existing difficulties, resulting in the potential disappearance of salmon runs and the permanent inundation of parts of the Lower Village. Looming in the background is the Cascadia Subduction Zone, capable of unleashing tidal waves that would engulf all of Taholah. Future climate outlooks are defined by the certainty of mitigable risks, e.g., sea level rise, and the uncertainty of the eventual scale of those risks and their implications for cultural futures.

Lower Village relocation is not a preemptive action, but one of urgent necessity. The Quinault have contributed minimally to climate change but are among those most immediately and seriously impacted. Although the QIN has developed comprehensive relocation plans, the actualization of these visions is structurally dependent on supra-local non-tribal funding and is subject to systemic jurisdictional and bureaucratic hurdles – the products of prejudice and both historical and contemporary government policy. The tribe’s efforts have also been hampered by corporate lobbying at the state level and the broader structural dysfunction of an unrepresentative federal government. Many in the tribe feel they are having to pull out all the stops for a project that should be a matter of fundamental state and federal obligations: they are asking that the United States begin to pay them back for what they and their ancestors have already given up or have had taken from them.

Taholah is not alone in this regard. The QIN has planned for the relocation of the much smaller northern village of Queets, and other tribes on the Olympic Peninsula, including the Quileute and Hoh, have engaged in relocation planning. Through negotiations with federal agencies the Quileute obtained785 acres of inland forest, formerly part of Olympic National Park, as a site for eventual relocation, and received a 2016 grant from the BIA to relocate their tribal school. Like the Quinault, the Quileute have not received funding to enact the actual constructive process of relocation. Other Indigenous communities on the coastal periphery include the Alaska Native village of Shishmaref, the island of Taro in the Solomon Islands, and the island of Gardi Sugdub in Panama, all of which aim to relocate.

For many Indigenous communities, an eminently challenging aspect of climate adaptation is the potential loss of sacred places and spaces filled with history and spiritual importance. Taholah is the site of many thousands of years of inhabitation for the Quinault, and though the tribe has room to safely relocate nearby—unlike the Quileute, who have no suitable option but to relocate inland—the prospect of the eventual loss of the Lower Village is sobering. In 2016, Fawn Sharp said of the tribe’s planned relocation: “It’s all related to transformation. That is part of life. Things transform and you come to accept it. This physical place [Lower Village] will be gone. Underwater. But it will still be there in spirit. So, part of it is mourning that loss, but at the same time also envisioning a new place. It’s bittersweet.”

Certain damages have already been done; others are irreversible or unavoidable. The world has changed, and is changing, and will change further. The Lower Village will one day be no more, even though the Quinault will relocate upwards and live on—as they have lived on in the era of settler-colonialism. There are lessons to be learned from that resilience. Julian Brave NoiseCat, a writer, progressive policy activist, and member of the Canim Lake Band Tsq’escen, wrote in 2020 that “those who know what it means to lose our world and live might have something to lend to a broader humanity that now faces its own existential crises…. [A]s the climate crisis unfolds, maybe more people will understand what it means to survive and still dream, like us.” Perhaps the most important lesson that we can learn from Taholah is that those who suffer and will suffer from climate effects suffer largely in accordance with historical antecedents and historically rooted inequities. Those who dwell in wealthy or middle-class neighborhoods within large cities will not experience the same variety or scale of disruption faced by a community such as Taholah. If climate adaptation is to be carried out in an equitable and future-focused manner, it must grapple with the histories of people and places in question; it must grapple with overlapping, underlying, systemic problems; and it must center the experiences of peoples who already face and have before faced the multiplicative effects of colonialism and a changing climate. Climate change is impactful by virtue of the vulnerability of the shapes and structures of communities, and those shapes and structures are not all rooted in the same environments or in the same histories. Some homes were built on bedrock. Others were built on fill.

Works Cited

Fawn Sharp, “Tribes have up close perspective on climate change.” The Seattle Times, April 23 2016, https://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/ tribes-have-up-close-perspective-on-climatechange/, accessed Nov. 9 2020

“Quinault Indian Reservation 2016 Tribal Hazards Mitigation Plan Update: Public Review Draft.” ICF International, July 2016, http://quinaultindiannation.com/documents/ Hazard%20mitigation%20draft.pdf, 105-107, accessed Nov. 9 2020

Ibid., 36

Quinault Indian Nation Community Development and Planning Department. “The Taholah Village Relocation Master Plan,” June 26 2017, http://www.quinaultindiannation.com/ planning/FINAL_Taholah_Relocation_Plan. pdf, 7, accessed Nov. 9 2020

Tim Wright, “A History of Treaties and Reservations on the Olympic Peninsula, 1855-1898.” Center for the Study of the Pacific Northwest, University of Washington, III, https://www. washington.edu/uwired/outreach/cspn/Website/ Classroom%20Materials/Curriculum%20 Packets/Treaties%20&%20Reservations/ Treaties%20&%20Reservations%20Main.html, accessed Nov. 9 2020

Ibid., IV

Alleck C. Smith, “Field Notes of the survey of the Quinitle and Qui-litute Indian Reservation,” October 5 1861, Bureau of Land Management, Land Status and Cadastral Survey Records, Township 021-0N Range 013-0W, item 0659.0- 0662.0, https://www.blm.gov/or/landrecords/

Cadastral Survey Records, Township 021-0N Range 013-0W, item 0659.0-0662.0, https:// www.blm.gov/or/landrecords/survey/ySrvy1. php, accessed Nov. 10 2020

Samuel P. Matthews, “Survey of the Indian Village of Taholah: General Description.” September 15, 1913, Bureau of Land Management, Land Status and Cadastral Survey Records, Township 021-0N Range 013-0W, item 0019.0-0028.0, https://www. blm.gov/or/landrecords/survey/ySrvy1.php, accessed Nov. 10 2020

Taholah Village Master Relocation Plan, 3

Coll Thrush, Native Seattle: Histories from the Crossing-Over Place. Seattle: University of Washington Press. 2007. 82

Carlie Clarcq, “Quinault Nation Looks to Carbon Pricing to Preserve Cultural Ties and Adapt to Climate,” climate-xchange. org, May 21 2020, https://climate-xchange. org/2020/05/21/quinault-nation-looks-tocarbon-pricing-to-preserve-cultural-tiesand-adapt-to-climate/, accessed Oct. 27 2020

Quinault Indian Nation Forestry Division, “Quinault Indian Reservation Forest Management Plan: Environmental Assessment April 2017,” April 2017, http://qlandandwater.org/wp-content/ uploads/2017/08/2017-FMP-EnvironmentalAssessment.pdf, accessed Oct. 25 2020

“Blueback Closure Latest Climate Change Impact.” Quinault Division of Natural Resources, http://qlandandwater.org/ blueback-closure/, accessed Nov. 3 2020 Tribal Hazards Mitigation Plan, 321

Jodi Helmer, “As the Ocean Encroaches, this Washington State Tribe Is Building Its Next Chapter,” NRDC, March 30 2020, https:// www.nrdc.org/stories/ocean-encroacheswashington-state-tribe-building-its-nextchapter, accessed Oct. 25 2020

Taholah Village Relocation Master Plan, 5

Ibid., 3

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Tribal Hazards Mitigation Plan, 32-33

Ibid., 43

U.S. Department of Education, Office of Elementary and Secondary Schooling, Abstracts of Funded Projects—Fiscal Year 2005/6: Impact Aid Discretionary Construction Grant Program, 2005, https:// oese.ed.gov/offices/office-of-formula-grants/ impact-aid-program/impact-aid-section7007-b-discretionary-construction-grantprogram/awards/, accessed Nov. 21 2020

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Helmer, “As the Ocean Encroaches […],” 2020

Tribal Hazards Mitigation Plan, 107

Katie Spidalieri, et al, “Managing the Retreat from Rising Seas, Case Study V: Quinault Indian Nation.” Georgetown Climate Center, 2020, https://www.georgetownclimate.org/files/ MRT/GCC_20_Taholah-3web.pdf, 2, accessed Nov. 9 2020

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Taholah Village Master Relocation Plan, 14-16

Ibid., 3

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Water Resources Development by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Washington. Portland, Oregon: 1975. 99

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https://www.congress.gov/116/meeting/ house/109008/witnesses/HHRG-116-AP06- Wstate-JohnstonT-20190307.pdf, accessed Oct. 25 2020

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Taholah Village Master Relocation Plan, 14

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Nick Watts et. al, “Health and climate change: policy responses to protect public health,” The Lancet 386 (2015): 1861-1914. 1877; Steve Robinson and Michael T. Alesko, “Addressing Climate Change at a Tribal Level,” The Evergreen State College, http://nativecases. evergreen.edu/collection/cases/addressing-climate-change, 14, accessed Nov. 25 2020.

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Brandi Montreuil, “Quinault’s Taholah Lower Village to relocate due to ocean threats,” Tulalip News, June 4 2014, https://www.tulalipnews. com/wp/2014/06/04/quinaults-taholah-lowervillage-to-relocate-due-to-ocean-threats/, accessed Oct. 27 2020

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Fawn Sharp, “Quinault Indian Nation Testimony to the U.S. House Appropriations Subcommittee on Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies,” March 24, 2015, https://docs.house.gov/meetings/AP/ AP06/20150324/102898/HHRG-114-AP06- Wstate-SharpF-20150324.pdf, accessed Oct. 25 2020

“Quinault Treaty, 1856,” Washington Governor’s Office of Indian’s Affairs, https:// goia.wa.gov/resources/treaties/quinaulttreaty-1856, accessed Nov. 25 2020 Quinault Indian Nation Forestry Division, prepared by Nancy Eldridge. “Indian Forestry: the Quinault Reservation Working Forest,” 2014, http://www.washington. forestry.org/sites/default/files/wa/2014_ Working_Forests_Eldridge.pdf, accessed Oct. 27 2020

Tribal Hazards Mitigation Plan, 205

Ibid.

Ibid.

Ibid., 206

Ibid., 206-207

Sharp, “Quinault Indian Nation Testimony […],” 2015

Mark Swanson, “Quinault tribe given $19 million for land buy-back program,” The Peninsula Daily News, September 21 2015, https://www.peninsuladailynews.com/news/ quinault-tribe-given-19-million-for-landbuy-back-program/, accessed Oct. 25 2020

Brown, “Climate Change & Rising Seas Forcing […],” 2016

Ibid.

Taholah Village Master Relocation Plan, 9

Ibid., 37-38

Ibid

Barb Aue, “Huge crowd celebrates new Ocosta Elementary School and tsunami shelter,” The Daily World, June 14 2016, https://web. archive.org/web/20160615130103/http:// thedailyworld.com/news/local/huge-crowdcelebrates-new-ocosta-elementary-schooland-tsunami-shelter, accessed Nov. 21 2020

Montreuil, “Quinault’s Taholah Lower Village to relocate […],” 2014; Brown, “Climate Change & Rising Seas Forcing […],” 2016

Tribal Hazards Mitigation Plan, 44

Clarcq, “Quinault Nation Looks to Carbon Pricing […],” 2020; Stephanie Keith, “A U.S. tribe’s uphill battle against climate change,” Reuters, June 26 2020, https://widerimage. reuters.com/story/a-us-tribes-uphill-battleagainst-climate-change, accessed Nov. 25 2020

Angelo Bruscas, “With economic summit, Quinault Nation looks for common ground.”