Fort Clatsop Administrative History

From 1990 through 1991, Superintendent Orlando campaigned the Pacific Northwest Regional Office for recognition of management needs at the memorial. Encroachment of development towards the memorial and the increasing possibility that development would be detrimental to memorial resources was the most pressing issue. Related to that issue was the outdated memorial Master Plan, which was due for revision in 1975. The thirty-year-old document did not address and could not guide the memorial in dealing with its resource and land use issues. A new management plan was a primary step in dealing with those issues, as well as updating many of the memorial's specific action plans.

Even though the memorial's master plan was thirty years old, the park still was not high on the priority list for preparation and funding of a new plan. For the memorial to wait for Congressional appropriations and a new plan from Denver Service Center, the park may have waited an additional five to ten years, if not longer. [1] After a site visit by the associate regional director for recreation resources and professional services and regional chief of lands to witness the adjacent land use issues facing the memorial, it was determined that these issues needed to be addressed and that the regional office, park staff, and private consultants would produce an in-house management plan for the memorial.

A planning team was organized by Keith Dunbar, the Chief of Planning and Environmental Compliance in the Pacific Northwest Regional Office (PNRO), which included Superintendent Orlando, memorial staff, representatives of various PNRO divisions, and private consultants. In 1992, the preparation of a new general management plan (GMP) began. On January 30, 1992, a public scoping meeting was held at the memorial. Twenty persons attended the meeting, including representatives of Washington State Parks Fort Canby, Oregon State Parks Fort Stevens, FCHA, Cavenham industries, the NPS, Clatsop County, and interested citizens. Planning issues and concerns facing the memorial "identified at the scoping meeting and subsequent meetings with memorial staff" became the basis of planning for the new GMP. [2]