Monday July 21, 2025
The Chronicle —
A fuel tanker truck crashed off Highway 101 and into Indian Creek, a tributary of the Elwha River, Friday morning west of Port Angeles — a gut punch” for an area that has, for decades, been the focus of recovery efforts for the river’s once-abundant salmon runs.
The truck with a capacity of 10,000 gallons of fuel rolled off the road around 10:20 a.m., Washington State Patrol Trooper Katherine Weatherwax said.
The tank was leaking fuel into the creek, and there was an odor, state Department of Ecology spokesperson Jessica Kulaas said. The truck’s capacity was 6,000 gallons of diesel and 4,000 gallons of gasoline, according to the state. The exact amount that spilled remained unclear.
A spill response team from Ecology arrived Friday afternoon.
Meanwhile the driver was taken to a Port Angeles hospital, Olympic Medical Center, as a precaution. He told first responders he suffered a medical emergency before driving off the highway, Weatherwax said.
The highway was blocked, Weatherwax said, and it may take hours before the vehicle is recovered.
The Clallam County sheriff’s office was asking nearby residents to evacuate because of the fumes, Weatherwax said.
The city of Port Angeles temporarily shut down water treatment processing operations “out of an abundance of caution” and asked people to conserve water, according to a news release. The Indian Creek basin feeds into the Elwha River, the city’s main potable water source.
The reservoirs have enough water for about a day without interruption to normal service, according to the city.
“I’m very concerned about the impacts on salmon and also forage fish, especially because this is the time of year where you see both adult salmon returning and juveniles heading out,” said Anna Kagley, a former National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration research fishery biologist who studied Elwha River recovery and assisted in the Exxon Valdez spill response.
“I am also aware that juveniles are very susceptible to hydrocarbon exposure based on our past research,” Kagley added.
Kagley said she was just in nearby Freshwater Bay this week and observed fish including smelt and sand lance.
Two hydroelectric dams were removed from the Elwha River starting in 2011, after decades of advocacy by the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe. The dams had blocked more than 90% of the river since 1911, and the river has since come roaring back.
It was then the largest dam removal project ever, and it helped pave the way for future restoration efforts, like dam removal on the Klamath River in California.
Runs of steelhead, Chinook and coho salmon alongside cutthroat and bull trout would all suffer devastating blows from contamination, said John McMillan, science director for the environmental and fishing-focused nonprofit Conservation Angler. The creek is one of the region’s most productive tributaries, and an area where the public has invested hundreds of millions of dollars for fish recovery efforts, McMillan said.
“It’s a gut punch,” he said. “You feel sick to your stomach that this would happen in a creek that’s so important to the Elwha.”
McMillan lives in Port Angeles. He drives and hikes often in the area, and he even snorkels the creek. That stretch of road was recently upgraded from a box culvert to a larger bridge so fish could pass through more easily.
It’s a straight stretch of the highway, no twists or turns, McMillan said.
As crews raced to understand the scope of the immediate problem, McMillan said he was worried about the future as well. Cleanup operations will likely take a long time and he’s concerned trees or logs could absorb the fuel and leach it into the waters for months or years.
The crash site is about a mile-and-a-half from the main stem of the Elwha River, McMillan added. If the contamination reaches the bigger water source, the problems could compound quickly.
The trucking company, PetroCard, has hired a spill response contractor. A company representative had no further information to add as of Friday evening.
Gov. Bob Ferguson said in a statement Friday that he will visit the crash site in the coming days.
“This is a devastating accident for Indian Creek and the Elwha River,” Ferguson said. “This spill is nothing short of heartbreaking for local tribes and other Washingtonians who rely on clean, healthy rivers and streams for their food and livelihoods.