Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe makes its case to Jefferson commissioners

Published 1:30 am Thursday, June 25, 2026

PORT TOWNSEND — For a second time, the Jefferson County commissioners delayed taking action on whether to send letters of support regarding a proposed tribal land transfer.

The three commissioners heard a presentation Monday regarding the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe Land Transfer Act of 2026 from Jamestown S’Klallam Chairman W. Ron Allen along with tribal Wildlife Refuge Manager and ecologist Fawn Wagner and tribal Natural Resources Director Hansi Hals.

The act is a proposed piece of federal legislation which would transfer the Dungeness and Protection Island national wildlife refuges into trust for the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe. The legislation is supported by U.S. Rep. Emily Randall, D-Port Orchard, and U.S. Sens. Maria Cantwell, D-Edmonds, and Patty Murray, D-Seattle.

The commissioners have been asked to send letters in support of the transfer act to the federal legislators.

When the matter first came to their attention, Commissioner Heidi Eisenhour said her main concern was the $26,000 a year the county receives in payment in lieu of taxes for Protection Island. That matter has been resolved between the county and the tribe, but the community has come forward with concerns about the transfer act.

Those concerns range from worries the land transfer will result in a loss of public voice regarding the management of the land, to concerns about the welfare of the birds and animals that depend on Protection Island for survival, to concerns that plans for the land may change in the future and include development.

The reason the legislation has been proposed at this time is because the tribe has an oyster farm within the egress waters of the refuge which it hasn’t used for farming for about 12 years, Allen said. The tribe is in the process of getting that oyster farm recertified, but the U.S. Department of Fish and Wildlife hasn’t been working with the tribe to do so, he said.

“There’s a program called the Self-Governance Program, it’s within the legislation called the Indian Self-Determination Education Assistance Act back in 1975,” Allen said. “It created a nexus for tribes being able to take over properties and activity that we have a nexus to. It’s a cultural nexus.”

Through that agreement, the tribe took over co-management of the Dungeness and Protection Island national wildlife refuges in August 2024.

“We have a vision that is more than the refuge,” Allen said.

By taking over ownership of the refuges, particularly Protection Island, the statutes which established Protection Island in the 1950s that sets requirements and the obligation to protect the refuges while maintaining public access would become the obligations of the tribe, Allen said.

“They don’t change the public’s right and public’s interest with regard to what we’re doing,” he said. “But we have such a higher interest. We have resources that are important to us. We do a lot of that with regard to purchasing properties and keeping them to preserve.”

The land transfer would not change the status of the land, Allen said.

“It stays in terms of its intended purpose,” he said. “It’ll just be owned by the tribe now. … So we will continue to monitor it, manage it and protect it.”

In the nearly two years the tribe has been the co-manager of the two refuges, many improvements have been made, Wagner said.

“In that short amount of time, we already identified some fixes that need to be done that were considered deferred maintenance to U.S. Fish and Wildlife,” she said. “One of the primary ones that we acted on really quickly on Protection Island specifically is that we repaired over 1,500 linear feet of road, which is the main access road up to the top of the island, which allows for us to complete management activities.”

The tribe manages invasive plants without pesticides, a change to U.S. Fish and Wildlife’s practice.

“A lot of people are really interested in the wildlife research that happens on the island,” Wagner said. “Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe has supported all of the wildlife research and monitoring efforts across Protection Island since we became co-managers.”

The tribe also is working to eliminate invasive pests, such as the non-native praying mantises currently on the island.

Along with that work, the tribe has set up additional monitoring technology to get a better sense of the birds and animals that use the island.

“So we’ve really not only taken the research that had already happened on Protection Island and helped increase that, but we’ve added a lot of other new studies which we believe are important for the protection of the island as a whole,” Wagner said.

The number of volunteers involved with the refuges has increased from about 100 to more than 200 since the tribe became a co-manager of the lands.

The tribe also is better able to provide incident response and law enforcement for the refuges with the availability of tribal law enforcement officers who are also fish and game officers and regularly visit the properties.

The tribe plans to continue public outreach and engagement for the refuges through public meetings and involvement with the 15-year planning cycle, which Hals said she feels should actually be a five-year planning cycle.

Following the presentation and the public voicing their concerns, the commissioners stated they want to wait until the tribe has provided a response to those concerns before they act on whether to send the letters of support.

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Reporter Emily Hanson can be reached by email at emily.hanson@peninsuladailynews.com.