Waatch River

The main stem of the Waatch runs for 7.8 miles (12.6 km), with seven tributary streams totaling 11.2 miles (18.0 km) in length. The headwaters of the river are in the Makah Peaks, a group of low mountains near the southern border of the Makah Reservation on the northwest end of the Olympic Peninsula in western Washington. The river flows north from its source, passing a logging road, and about 2 miles (3.2 km) upstream receives two unnamed tributary streams. About 4.6 miles (7.4 km) from its source, it meets its only major tributary, Educket Creek. After receiving the creek, it turns southwest and reaches its wide tidal marsh. It flows through the marsh and reaches its mouth on the Pacific Ocean at Makah Bay near Waatch Point, adjacent to the mouth of Waatch Creek to the northwest.^[1]

The entire drainage basin of the river, about 12.7 square miles (33 km²) in area, lies within the Makah Reservation.^[2] The reservation mostly consists of rugged hills with steep slopes and narrow valleys. The basin mainly consists of timberland covered in secondary forest, with only limited quantities of old-growth forest. Some of the residential areas of Neah Bay, the main settlement of the reservation, are located along portions of the river's lower course.^[3][4] The river is the main source of water for the town.^[5]

The Waatch River and Educket Creek have deposited a layer of clay, silt, sand, and gravel across the valley, adjacent to the Neah Bay town center.^[6] This plain of alluvium divides the Lyre Formation, an Eocene-era conglomerate and sandstone geological formation which lies beneath the river's headwaters. Some of the upper portions of the river overlie the western parts of the Hoko River Formation.^[7]

During the early 2000s, the Waatch River exceed state environmental regulations for dissolved oxygen concentration, pH, and water temperature.^[8]

The river's name comes from the name of a historic Makah village, waʔač, meaning "bundling up cedar to make a torch" in Makah.^[9] The settlement was one of the five Makah villages which existed prior to European contact.^[10] The 1855 Treaty of Neah Bay protected the rights of the Makah to harvest fish in area, reaffirmed by the 1974 court case United States v. Washington, which named the Waatch it as one of the tribe's common fishing areas protected by the treaty.^[11]

During the early 1950s, the United States government constructed a cantonment (barracks) for the newly-established Makah Air Force Station adjacent to the river estuary. The station was decommissioned in 1988.^[12]

Opened in 1981, the Makah National Fish Hatchery in Neah Bay hatches Chinook salmon, Coho salmon, and steelhead trout and releases them into the Waatch and the nearby Sooes River.^[13] Chinook and Coho salmon are not thought to naturally occur in the Waatch.^[14] An impassable waterfall about 4 miles upstream from the mouth prevents fish from migrating further upriver from the sea.^[15]