Grays Harbor County, WA Landscaping Rules: Tree Removal & Heritage Trees (2026)

Section 18.06.650 protects the Lake Quinault fish and wildlife habitat conservation area, the only tree-retention rule of its kind in the unincorporated county code. Any development proposal or activity within two hundred feet of the lake's ordinary high water mark must include a critical protection area special study, prepared by a qualified professional, evaluating impacts on habitat and species before the county's approval authority will set a buffer in consultation with the Quinault Indian Nation. Within that same two-hundred-foot band, standing trees must be retained outright; a property owner may remove limbs to open a view but cannot take the tree down.

Trees that fall into the lake on their own must be left where they fall, and any tree or log that floats onto the shoreline between the ordinary high water mark and the summer low water line must stay where it lands rather than be hauled away or cut up. The lakebed itself, up to the ordinary high water mark, sits inside the Quinault Indian Reservation and is owned by the Quinault Indian Nation, so any activity below that mark needs the tribe's written approval before the county will issue a development permit.

Bank stabilization within the protected band is limited to bioengineering and other soft, nonstructural techniques such as natural vegetation, sand fill and biodegradable fiber logs, designed by a state-licensed engineer in consultation with a qualified biologist, and it must be approved by both the Quinault Indian Nation and the county before a permit issues. These rules exist because Lake Quinault supports nine salmon species and races, two char species, a threatened bull trout population and the only juvenile rearing habitat for depressed Quinault sockeye salmon.