Olympic Park Advocates is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit citizens conservation organization working to protect the beauty, integrity and biological diversity of Olympic National Park and the Olympic ecosystem.
OPA was founded in 1948, as Olympic Park Associates, to defend the Park against attacks on its spectacular old-growth rain forest valleys. Seven decades later, we continue to work doggedly for increased protection for the Olympics.
If you share with us a passion for Olympic National Park, a concern for the Park’s future, and a vision that Olympic National Park should always be a wild, natural and ecologically diverse place, we invite you to join Olympic Park Advocates.
As a member you will receive our newsletter, Voice of the Wild Olympics, and special mailings alerting you to issues and actions impacting the Park. Most importantly, you will be supporting an all-volunteer, grassroots organization dedicated to preserving Olympic National Park “for the benefit and enjoyment of the people” of present and future generations. To join, click here.
Our History
OPA was founded in 1948 when conservationists who helped create Olympic National Park regrouped to fend off timber industry efforts to remove the park’s spectacular rainforest valleys. OPA rallied again in the 1950s and ’60s to successfully defend the park’s incomparable lowland forests.
We lobbied to add the Olympic coastal strip and Queets corridor to the park in the 1950s and organized a national effort to stop the “salvage logging” of Olympic’s forests. OPA organized two hikes led by U.S. Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas to turn back efforts to build a highway along the Olympic coast, and we led the effort to add Shi Shi Beach and Lake Ozette to the park in the 1970s.
During the following decade OPA was successful in gaining permanent wilderness protection for nearly 100,000 acres of spectacular wildlands in Olympic National Forest and over 95 percent of Olympic National Park. We defeated proposals for hydroelectric dams on the Dosewallips and Duckabush rivers, and in 1992 helped pass the Elwha River Ecosystem Restoration Act which resulted in the removal of two salmon-blocking dams on the Elwha River, the park’s largest watershed. Two years later, we helped create the Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary. More recently we succeeded in banning noisy jet skis from Lake Crescent, halted air-lifting new shelters into remote locations in park wilderness, and helped guide development of the park’s 2008 general management plan.
As part of the Wild Olympics coalition, we worked to introduce bills in Congress in 2012 that would designate 126,000 acres of wilderness and 19 wild and scenic rivers in Olympic National Forest.
OPA at 75: A Storied Past and a Vision for the Future
By Tim McNulty
April 28, 2023
Seventy-five years ago, a group of conservationists came together to defend the recently created Olympic National Park against timber industry attempts to remove its magnificent rain-forest valleys. Knowing this would be an ongoing battle, the group incorporated as Olympic Park Associates, now Olympic Park Advocates.
Three-quarters of a century later, that same organization continues to defend this world-class park and work for protections for its surrounding ecosystem. Only now, OPA pursues this vision amidst a cavalcade of threats fueled by increasing human demands and a rapidly warming climate.
As we celebrate our 75th year, it’s worth reflecting on our legacy of successes. But it’s also critical that we face current challenges honestly and refocus on the work that remains to be done.
Please click here to read the full story. For a historic perspective on FDR’s 1937 trip to the Olympic Peninsula by John Kendall, click here.
A Look Back: The Hike That Saved the Coast
By Rob Smith
June 10, 2023
In 1953, the year I was born, President Truman exercised an option to bring the longest undeveloped stretch of coastline in the Lower 48 states into Olympic National Park. That should have been enough to guarantee protection of these beaches, sea stacks and wild coast for all time. But it wasn’t.
Within just a few years, boosters were advocating for an extension of U.S. 101 along the coast to bring more tourism to the area … However, Olympic Park Associates (OPA’s original name) teamed up with other organizations to keep the park’s coastal strip wild.
Click here to read full story.
Board of Trustees
*Member of Executive Committee
President: *John Bridge, Sequim
Vice-president: *Tim McNulty, Sequim
Secretary: *Paul Robisch, Seattle
Treasurer: *Annie Cubberly, Olympia
Trustees
Tom Bihn, Winthrop
David Friedman, Seattle
John Gussman. Sequim
*Tom Hammond, Port Angeles
Dan Lieberman, Port Angeles
Donna Osseward, Seattle
Mary Peck, Santa Fe
Rob Smith, Bainbridge Island
Shelley Spalding, Elma
Honorary Status
President-emeritus: Donna Osseward, Seattle
Membership Chair
Paul Robisch
PO Box 27560, Seattle, WA 98165-2560
Advisory Board
Janis Burger, Port Angeles
Paul Crawford, Santa Barbara, CA
Bruce Moorhead, Port Angeles
Richard Rutz, Kenmore
Jim Scarborough, Bellingham
John Woolley, Sequim
Bookkeeper
Judi Jones, Holly Ridge, NC
Webmaster
Alex Bradley, Port Townsend
Newsletter Editor
Amy Youngblood, Seattle
