| Last updated Sunday,
December 24, 2000
Dungeness River Management
Team profiles
The following are profiles on Dungeness
River Management Team members:
— Steve Tharinger, 52, District
1 Clallam County commissioner and river management team chairman
"It's most important function
is a forum for discussion of issues that impact the Dungeness River
watershed," Tharinger said, "a place where both government
agencies and citizens get together and address the issues affecting
the watershed."
Tharinger became chairman of
the team when he became District 1 commissioner in last November's
election; he was involved with it earlier as a member of the county
planning commission.
Tharinger says that as a riverfront
property owner himself, he is sensitive to development issues facing
other property owners in the wake of ever-tightening land-use regulations.
— Ann Seiter, 46, Jamestown
S'Klallam tribal natural resources director
Seiter has been with the team
since its 1988 inception. "My long history with the group has
provided a continuity within the group," Seiter said, referrin
ng to the team's changing composition over the years. Representatives
leave, other groups come in, and the consistent tribal presence provides
the team with a strong institutional memory.
— Al Moore, 68, riverfront property
owner
Moore has been on the team since
1995. Moore owns 32 acres of property, much of it river and creek
frontage, near the Hurd Creek hatchery on Fasola Road. A retired Los
Angeles firefighter, Moore moved to Sequim 11 years ago.
"When I moved here, it was
just water to me," he said. Moore has worked extensively to improve
his personal part of the river by stabilizing its banks, recently
adding four "woody debris" jams to improve salmon habitat.
Moore admits the process of river restoration is slow but said he
has faith in its eventual recovery. "It's just a slow process,"
Moore said.
"But it's gonna get done
eventually."
— Mike Jeldness, 54, Dungeness
Agricultural Water Users Association coordinator and Agnew Irrigation
District manager
As Water Users Association coordinator,
Jeldness represents the association's four irrigation districts and
three water companies. Jeldness is also manager of the Agnew Irrigation
District, the largest of the watershed's four irrigation districts.
"I'm like a liaison between
all of the (water) districts and other governmental agencies,"
Jeldness said. In his role as coordinator, Jeldness monitors all the
water taken out of the river by irrigation companies, and produces
the annual water-users report agreed upon in the Dungeness-Quilcene
Plan. Jeldness has served on the team since 1996. He moved to Sequim
in 1969 and has worked with the Agnew Irrigation District for 22 years.
— Walt Blendermann, 66, sport
fisheries representative
"My role on the team is
basically as an advocate for sport fisheries," Blendermann said.
"We are part of and support projects and approaches that will
increase the number of fish in the river, at the same time maintaining
its cultural and environmental values. É Sport fishermen would like
to have fish to catch." Blendermann retired in 1989 from the
aerospace industry in California and is vice president of the North
Olympic Salmon Coalition, a volunteer organization devoted to salmon
enhancement.
— Randy Johnson, 48, Department
of Fish and Wildlife biologist
Johnson, a Washington Department
of Fish and Wildlife habitat biologist, has been with the team from
its late 1980s beginning. "I've seen enormous strides made in
water conservation," Johnson said. "There are some really
good people working enormously hard to get what they need and make
sure there's still a lot of water left in the river for fish."
Johnson has worked with the department for 24 years, 23 on the North
Olympic Peninsula.
— Virginia Clark, 71, Watershed/Dungeness-Quilcene
Planning
Clark has been on the team since
its reactivation in 1995 but began her involvement with watershed
studies as a member of the group that wrote the Dungeness-Quilcene
water management plan in 1994. Clark, who holds a doctorate in biostatistics,
retired as a professor of biostatistics from the school of public
health at the University of California at Los Angeles. Biostatistics,
Clark explained, involve the "application of statistics to life
forms. É the effect of smog, for instance, on respiratory diseases."
Clark said she represents the average resident. "I'm trying to
represent the broad citizenship," Clark said.
— Cynthia Nelson, 48, watershed
planning coordinator, state Department of Ecology
Nelson represents the state Department
of Ecology on the team. Nelson joined in 1995, shortly after it was
reactivated. "I'm the lead of the state caucus for the watershed
planning effort funded by HB 2514. É I'm the bureaucrat," Nelson
said. Nelson describes herself as the link between the state and the
team; she has worked for Ecology for 16 years and lives in Olympia.
— John Beitzel, 61, Sequim
City Council member
Beitzel is the team's newest
member. A retired geophysicist, Beitzel replaced city council member
Trina Berg on the team in July. Beitzel said he is there to look after
the city of Sequim's interests in the watershed.
"Salmon, land use, economic
development," Beitzel said, "É all this stuff ties together."
Bell Creek, for instance, lies
almost entirely within city limits and is historically among the first
to flood in severe storms. Beitzel retired to Sequim five years ago
from Houston.
— Eloise Kailin, 81, president,
Protect the Peninsula's Future
The Washington Environmental
Council named Kailin a hero last November for her efforts to protect
the environment. Kailin, a retired physician, has been involved with
the team off and on since its inception, but as for specifics, "time
gets blurred," Kailin said.
"I have attended a majority
of the DRMT meetings since their inception in 1988," Kailin said.
She has been a member of the
Peninsula conservation group since 1973, and brings her extensive
experience as a steward of the environment to every meeting.
"My particular charge is
the environmentalist's view," Kailin said, explaining that her
concerns extend beyond fisheries management to the ecosystem as a
whole: wetlands, estuaries, salmon and stream flows.
Kailin is perhaps best known
for her efforts in persuading the city of Sequim, with a law suit,
to upgrade its wastewater treatment facilities. The water reclamation
facility on Blake Avenue is the result of that battle.
— Les Sandison, 83, North
Olympic Land Trust representative
"My primary interest is
the propagation of fish," Sandison said, "to get the salmon
going again." The land trust has been actively involved in the
acquisition of river property, both through the purchase of development
rights, the purchase of conservation easements, and the outright purchase
of land itself. The land then goes into a trust, which is legally
bound to preserve the land "in perpetuity," or indefinitely.
"Our group has acquired
a lot of land along the river," Sandison said. Sandison grew
up in Port Angeles, where he lives today. He retired from the bakery
business nearly two decades ago. His focus on the team is restoring
the wild salmon runs. "Years ago," Sandison said, "we
could have walked across the river on the backs of humpies."
from Sequim Gazette http://www.sequimgazette.com/SpecialReports/DungenessRiverManagementTeam/drmtprofiles001227.html
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