For Immediate Release

June 7, 2001

HOUSE INTERIOR APPROPRIATIONS BILL FUNDS
ANOTHER MAJOR INCREMENT FOR ELWHA DAM PROJECT

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The House Interior Appropriations Subcommittee today approved another $25.8 million for the Elwha River restoration project, maintaining the schedule for removal of the two dams on the river in 2004, U.S. Rep. Norm Dicks said Thursday.

The congressman, who serves as the ranking Democratic member of the panel, said “The approval of this substantial increment represents a clear endorsement of the Elwha restoration project by the subcommittee and by the new Bush Administration,” which had included the item in its budget request for the next fiscal year.

Following federal acquisition of the dam and property along the Elwha River outside of Olympic National Park in 2000, engineering and design work is now underway to replace the water supply for Port Angeles and for the eventual removal of the two dams.   The congressman noted that the project has broad consensus in the area and nationwide because it offers a unique opportunity to return the river to its free-flowing condition and to bring back a once-thriving salmon population.  Much of the river has been protected from development because it is inside the park boundary, Rep. Dicks said, and it is thus considered to be one of the nation’s most promising restoration opportunities.

The subcommittee also approved funds to continue a six-year program to increase conservation spending across federal environmental accounts that will boost land acquisition, maintenance and wildlife habitat protection in national parks, forests and refuge areas.  Initially approved in September of last year, Rep. Dicks’ conservation infrastructure program has doubled the amount of funding available for enhancement and protection of natural resources in order to address a serious national backlog of acquisition and maintenance of public lands and parks.  In the upcoming fiscal year, the subcommittee approved a total of $1.32 billion for conservation spending, up from $1.2 billion in the current year and $637 million in Fiscal Year 2000.

“We are fulfilling the commitment that Congress made last year in approving the conservation programs increase over a sustained period of time,” said Rep. Dicks.  “I am pleased that the subcommittee has provided everything that was anticipated in this second year of our effort,” he said.

The congressman noted also that the panel rejected budget cuts proposed by the Bush Administration in the Department of Energy’s conservation and energy research programs that are funded in the Interior Appropriations bill.

“These are small, but critical, programs that explore alternative energy development and encourage conservation,” Dicks observed. “ With the nation’s serious energy challenges ahead, we should be accelerating federal research efforts rather than reducing them,” he said.

The Interior funding bill also included funding for several key Washington State priorities, including:

-- $11.35 million for continued habitat restoration activities in Pacific Northwest forests, conducted by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service.  The agency will also pursue additional research on Bull Trout habitat, hatchery reform and it will issue salmon habitat protection grants in Washington with funds from the Interior bill. 

-- In the budget for the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the bill provides $4 million for the state’s “Timber Fish and Wildlife” program and it funds other important tribal health, salmon and economic development initiatives in Washington.

-- Innovative forestry strategies, including the “landscape ecology” concept pioneered at the University of Washington, will receive continued funding in the next fiscal year, in addition to another $9.2 million for assistance to timber communities in the budget of the U.S. Forest Service.

-- The bill also funds critical land acquisitions that will augment and expand parks and wildlife refuge areas within Washington State:

Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge - $1 million
Ebey’s Landing National Historical  Reserve - $1 million
Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area - $6 million
North Cascades National Park - $1 million
Pacific NW Streams initiative (Forest Service) - $5 million
Wild and Scenic Rivers - $15 million
I90 Corridor acquisitions, Cascade partnership - $2 million
Olympic National Park inholdings - $121 million

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