Lawsuit challenges tribe’s control of Lake Quinault

A civil suit filed in U.S. District Court in Tacoma challenges the Quinault Indian Nation’s jurisdiction over Lake Quinault, a body of water the tribe has exercised control over for the past 140 years.

The plaintiffs in the case, North Quinault Properties LLC and Thomas and Beatrice Landreth, have asked the federal court to determine the “status of Lake Quinault and the property rights of non-tribal property owners abutting the Lake and … court’s determination as the public’s right to access of the lake, its shore and lake bed.” The suit was filed in December.

The Quinault Indian Nation regulates recreational use of the lake for non-tribal members and has also enacted regulations affecting lakeshore property owners. It has even implemented fishing and boating bans on the lake in the last few years, though the tribe eventually lifted most of those restrictions.

The Landreths referred questions on the suit to their attorneys when contacted Tuesday. One of their attorneys, Elizabeth Thompson, said the issue of the lake’s ownership revolves around the Equal Footing and Public Trust doctrines. Thompson said navigable waters are preserved for public use under the Public Trust Doctrine and that when Washington state joined the union in 1889 it was given “equal footing” as the other territories, which included use of public waterways.

“It’s our position that the lake has been a part of the public trust since it (Washington) became a state,” said Thompson. She stated that the state should exercise rights over the lake “for the benefit of the public and property owners.”

However, a 2009 legal opinion from a solicitor for the U.S. Department of the Interior states that President Ulysses Grant’s original presidential proclamation on the formation of the Quinault reservation in effect allowed them to control the lake in order to use it for fishing and to sustain their livelihood as a people. In the solicitor’s opinion, that and the original Treaty of Olympia with the Quinaults, clearly gives them ownership of the lake.

Representatives from the Quinault Indian Nation have pointed to the opinion as justification for their position of ownership of the lake. A call to a spokesman for the Quinaults on the most recent legal action had not been returned as of Tuesday afternoon.

In the most recent edition of Nugguam, a tribal newspaper, Quinault Nation Vice President Gina James writes about the suit in a column titled “A situation at Lake Quinault.”

“Over the years there have been legal cases and surveys where Lake Quinault was indeed affirmed to be owned by the Quinault Tribe,” James writes. “Not only legal cases but civil disputes where LQ residents wanted more control and fishing rights over the lake.”

Article 2 of the 1855 Treaty of Olympia states, “there shall be reserved, for the use an occupation of the tribes, a tract of land sufficient for their wants … to be selected by the President of the United States… and no white man shall be permitted to reside thereon without permission of the tribe.”

In the 2006 opinion, the solicitor concluded that because of this treaty, which came before statehood, the tribe can “regulate, permit and prohibit certain types of activities and construction along the shore and into the lake.”

In their suit, the plaintiffs argue the Quinaults’ control of the lake has resulted in deprivation of property rights to the plaintiffs, other non-tribal property owners and the public. The suit seeks attorneys fees and costs associated with the case, as well as unspecified punitive damages at the discretion of the court.