Email Connection
Newsletters, special events
and announcements
direct to your inbox.
Enter your email below

104 North Laurel,
Suite 104
Port Angeles, WA 98362
Phone (360) 417-1815
Fax: (360) 457-1089
Email Us

Agreements add to Siebert Creek Conservation

Robyn and John Miletich on the Christmas Tree farm

When Robyn Miletich was a child, she worked on her family’s berry farm. She likes to tell people, “I grew up on a berry farm, not a dairy farm”. As she grew older, the land that her parents, Eloise Johnson and the late George K. Johnson, bought in 1955, and where she lived with her husband John for 20 years came to have deeper meaning for her. She has fond memories of walking to the Creek, watching the fish, and enjoying the beautiful forest around her. Now the life-long Clallam County resident and owner of Country Aire Natural Foods, in Port Angeles, has taken a step that will assure the qualities she loves about the property always will be protected.

To protect the land in its natural state has always been her wish. Robyn and her husband, John Miletich, signed papers earlier this month for a permanent legal agreement with North Olympic Land Trust, officially termed a conservation easement. They can continue owning the 21.14 acres they protected as long as they wish and then sell it or pass it along to others. The agreement protecting the land’s conservation values will remain in place “in perpetuity.”

Siebert Creek roars through a portion of a property North Olympic Land Trust acquired this month as part of a more than decade-long effort to protect salmon habitat. (Photo by Fred Sharpe)

Through that agreement and another with Verna Adolphsen to purchase 4.36 acres of her land along Siebert Creek, Land Trust Conservation Director Michele d’Hemecourt said the Land Trust has achieved a decade-long goal of giving the stream protection for 2 miles, starting with its estuary at the point it enters the Strait of Juan de Fuca. That goal was set after the Land Trust received 37.5 acres that had been purchased by Pacific Woodrush, a nonprofit organization, with state and federal salmon restoration funds. When Pacific Woodrush dissolved, its leaders arranged to transfer the property’s ownership to the Land Trust.

The value of the Siebert Creek watershed has been well documented by numerous specialists, including Fred Sharpe, PhD, who contributed his extensive biological knowledge and experience for the application to the State Salmon Recovery Board that enabled the Land Trust to purchase
The stream begins in the mountains of Olympic National Park at 2,800 feet elevation and enters the Strait of Juan de Fuca at Green Point, renowned for nearby halibut fishing. Its length, counting tributaries is 31 miles.

Although studies show fish runs being below historic levels, they also say the stream currently possesses healthy populations of winter steelhead trout and coho salmon. The stream is described as historically supporting chum salmon, and several other species of trout, including cutthroat, rainbow and Dolly Varden.

Corridor of trees provides a dramatic view of the portion of lower Siebert Creek North Olympic Land Trust has protected, now a total of 2 miles from the stream’s beginning. (Photo by Russ Mellon)

The Land Trust already protects the Siebert Creek estuary, which d’Hemecourt said has been called the best of its kind, providing critical rearing and feeding areas for juvenile salmonids and possible habitat for bull trout, chum and Chinook salmon. Dr. Sharpe documented more than 52 different species of birds, along with deer, coyote, raccoon and cougar, in the lower Siebert Creek watershed and “excellent ecological condition.” “The healthy growth of conifers indicates the forest is well on its way to achieving the ancestral ecological condition,” he wrote.

Land Trust protection of Siebert Creek began in 2002 with a conservation easement agreement with the Wood family that protected wetlands draining into the stream from their 5 acres south of Highway 101. The Ostlund family was next with a 41-acre conservation easement agreement. Its forests above the stream help maintain the quality of its waters for fish habitat, d’Hemecourt said. The first protection for the watershed and stream north of Highway 101 came in 2006 when heirs of the late Evelyn Plant followed desires the owner had expressed, and 39 acres were included in a conservation easement. That same year Cheryl Smith and Judy Winthrop completed an agreement protecting 11 acres in the watershed and next to the Olympic Discovery Trail.
Robyn Miletich’s brother, Steve Johnson, and their mother completed an agreement with the Land Trust in 2007, protecting 19 acres of their Lazy J Tree Farm.

The Conservation Director said the Miletich, Johnson and Smith-Winthrop properties are all near the Olympic Discovery Trail, so more birds and other wildlife for Trail users to enjoy can be expected than if the properties were developed. Steve Johnson grows Christmas trees on part of the Miletich property as well as his own land, continuing the 40-year operation their father started and permitted as agricultural uses by the conservation easement agreements on those lands.

Meeting the goals to protect the lower 2 miles of the Siebert Creek watershed and protecting a total of 136 acres is a good reason to celebrate contributions of many people and organizations, d’Hemecourt said. She said the projects would not have been possible without grants from the State Salmon Recovery Funding Board, the State Shoreline Block grant, administered by Clallam County, and NOLT’s Landowner Assistance Fund, as well as donated time from NTI Engineering and Surveying, Port Angeles; Stratum Group, Bellingham; and Dr. Sharpe, and assistance from North Olympic Peninsula Lead Entity.

Most recent volunteer work, led by Land Trust Stewardship Manager Lorrie Campbell, has included creating trails and planting trees on property the Land Trust owns in preparation for opening it to the public. “This project is one critical and timely step to continue this watershed-scale salmon conservation effort,” d’Hemecourt said.