BrinnonProsperity.org

HI -- please notify me via e-mail if/when there will be a public meeting at
which locals can air their views on replacing the washed-out portion of
"our" road up to the two campgrounds and ranger station within the Oly Nat
Park via the Dosewallips Road.

Local people and local business owners have not been given an organized
public forum at which to voice their concern that this road may fall victim
to the overzealous environmentalists who seem not to understand how
vigorously wildlife -- even fish! -- are able to conform and adapt to
whatever comes their way as time and seasons roll around. Even a
washed-out portion of a stream is quickly rebuilt by what people choose to
call the forces of Nature. Salmon will NOT disappear from the Dosewallips
River if that strip of road is rebuilt, enabling people to once again enter
the Park from this VERY DESIRABLE entrance area!

I'd sure like to hear the actual number of overnite campers, hikers and
climbers, and day visitors that the upper campground and even the Elkhorn
Campground hosted each summer. Don't the powers-that-be (who make the
bottom-line decisions here) even consider of any importance the financial
and economic impact that the loss of that number of people coming into our
local area has already made -- and continues to make -- on these who live
here and try to make a decent living so they can stay here?

This side of Hood Canal used to be a Mecca for people who enjoyed camping,
fishing, hiking and watching the area's bountiful flora and fauna. With
the advent of commercial over-fishing, the sports fishing industry that
once thrived here is now long gone. But tourism does NOT have to disappear
just because of that. It is years now since I've been able to drive up and
just park and look at the Falls of the Dosey. What a gorgous wild river it
is! Now no one can see it! Believe me, if this had happened in California
-- well, the road would have been replaced within a few months! That state
sure knows the value of the tourist dollar! And the genuine value to the
American people being able to have access to a beautiful wilderness area
like ours here!

Do people really think that trees and brush removed from an area within our
Puget Sound area forests would "permanently scar" the area? Have they ever
tried to carve out a farm or even yard adjacent to/abutting a forest area?
If you do absolutely nothing -- within 3 years you would hardly realize an
area had been cleared off! You cannot stop GROWTH of the vegetation in the
Puget Sound Basin! New trees and shrubs and vines soon come in and take
over. You can't prevent it from happening if you try! What on earth makes
these nuts think that an area of the streambed can be irretrievably damaged
beyond repair if a few road graders and other heavy equipment are brought
in to repair a stretch of roadbed? Apparently they have been reading too
much of their own literature -- and not observing real LIFE!
Jean Wasell