The Elwha Parcels Are on the President's Desk
Congress sent the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe Project Lands Restoration Act to the President on 14 October 2026. It would place 1,082.63 acres in trust. It is not signed.
Melissa Gilman walked land the treaty gave up in 1855
Melissa Gilman, chair of the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe, walked the old project lands with National Park Service staff in the week before Seattle Times published. The river above them starts as meltwater in the Olympic Mountains and meets salt water on the reservation west of Port Angeles. The dams that buried this stretch are already gone. What is not gone is the title.
Congress.gov lists H.R. 2388, the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe Project Lands Restoration Act, as presented to the President on 14 October 2026. The enrolled text takes approximately 1,082.63 acres into trust for the Lower Elwha Tribal Community, also known as the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe. The map is titled "Olympic National Park Proposed Transfer of Elwha Lands," numbered 149/178020, dated December 2021. The land becomes part of the reservation. Gaming on it is prohibited. News shorthand of 1,100 acres is the same parcels, rounded. The statute's figure is 1,082.63.
Representative Emily Randall, Democrat of Washington's 6th district, introduced the bill on 26 March 2025. Senator Maria Cantwell's office said on 28 September that the Senate had passed it unanimously after the House. Cantwell described three parcels and a return of federal project land so the tribe can keep stewarding habitat for Chinook, coho, chum, pink and sockeye salmon, plus steelhead and bull trout. The Elwha Dam and Glines Canyon Dam were removed by 2014, then the largest dam removal of its kind. Restoration did not end when the concrete came out.
Seattle Times, updated 12 October 2026, said the bill awaits President Donald Trump's signature, and that this would be the first time these lands have come back to the tribe since the Point No Point Treaty of 1855, when nations ceded territory for promises of health care, education, and the right to hunt, fish and gather in usual and accustomed places. The paper reported that 2026 is the fourth year in a row tribal members have fished the river under those rights. Good News Network wrote the unsigned bill up on 15 October and placed the parcels between the state route 101 and route 112 bridges.
Gilman told Seattle Times the transfer is how the tribe oversees the long repair of the river. That sentence is the story. The signature is not yet on the page.
Key Facts
- Presented to the President: 14 October 2026, Congress.gov, H.R. 2388
- Enrolled acreage: 1,082.63 acres, map 149/178020, December 2021
- Introduced by Rep. Emily Randall on 26 March 2025; Senate passage reported by Sen. Maria Cantwell on 28 September 2026
- Dams removed by 2014
- Point No Point Treaty: 1855
- Chair: Melissa Gilman, Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe
- Gaming on the transferred land is prohibited
- Sources: Congress.gov, Seattle Times, Cantwell press release
Why This Matters
Dam removal without the land is a river running through someone else's title. The tribe has already spent a decade on the water. The bill is the capstone the project documents always pointed at, and it is still a bill. Readers who hear "returned" have been told a step that has not happened.
What We Don't Know Yet
The President has not signed. A presentation to the desk is not a statute. How the Bureau of Indian Affairs will manage the handoff, and what changes on the ground in the first season, are not in the enrolled text. Salmon numbers on these exact 1,082.63 acres are not a new census in this week's reporting.