The van carrying tribal officials went off the coast and onto a dirt path hidden by cedar and spruce trees. It emerged from a clearing high above the Indian Reservation after climbing an old logging road.
The officials want to go back to the hilltop where they were standing. The most suitable land the tribe has for building is this one. He said it would cost half a billion dollars to move up the mountain.
Some tribes are trying to relocate to areas better protected from extreme weather but don't have the money to do so.
The program created by the Biden administration appears to be the first of its kind in American history. The Department of the Interior is trying to decide which tribes will get funding this year, and which will have to wait.
A model for other agencies to follow is likely to be established by that decision.
The federal government is trying to shift its approach from rebuilding after disasters to helping the most exposed communities. Demand from communities to relocate will only increase, straining the government's ability to pay for it.
The new program makes it possible for the government to decide which places to help first as it adjusts to climate change.
Bryan Newland is an assistant secretary at the Interior Department.
Mr. Newland acknowledged that not every tribe will get money through the program. The winning tribes won't get all the money they need.
He said that they need to start somewhere.
The United States forced the relocation of Native Americans for hundreds of years. Many tribes were moved to less hospitable land that made them more vulnerable to extreme weather.
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The area is facing a shortage of water. The story of the Netherlands has been told all over its boggy landscape. The Dutch are trying to engineer once again their way to safety by figuring out how to hold onto water instead of throwing it out.
The federal government tried to relocate. Isle de Jean Charles, a village in Louisiana that is sinking into the Gulf of Mexico, was given $48 million to be moved. The majority of residents were from the Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw tribe.
The relocation was intended as an example for moving towns that were no longer protected against climate change.
New support has been gained for relocation. The Bureau of Indian Affairs was given $130 million by Congress last year to help tribes relocate.
Grants of up to $3 million a year will be given. This year, the bureau will spend over twenty million dollars on community relocation.
The New York Times obtained a list of tribes that applied for relocation grants. The site of one of the most important experiments in U.S. climate adaptation policy is located within 100 miles of five of those tribes.
The peninsula is made up of mountains and rainforest. There are a number of Indian reservations and small towns at the center of Olympic National Park.
Nick Bond said that the peninsula's lushness is a threat because of the heavy rain.
As the planet warms, more intense precipitation swells the area's rivers and streams. Communities on the coast are exposed to inland flooding as storms get stronger. Dr. Bond said there were a couple of things going on.
It's a dire threat in the bay.
It is vulnerable to erosion due to the broad coastal marsh. The ocean moves inland in an average year.
The Army Corps of Engineers spent $8.4 million on a dune on the beach in order to protect the reservation. Three storms caused damage to the dune. Storms wrecked it again, after the Corps repaired it.
25 feet high, 200 feet wide at the top and 4,000 feet long, protected by a 75-foot-wide stone revetment, is what the Corps is working on. The structure is more like a rampart than a dune and will cost as much as $40 million.
The engineer drove an A.T.V. along the beach. tufts of vegetation were still attached to the sand after it was washed away by the tide.
A thick pipe was used to discharge sand and water from the ocean bed at the south end of the half finished dune. The sand that remains forms the part of the barrier that protects the reservation from being wiped out.
The Corps predicts that the dune will need to be rebuilt within a decade. Mr. Ayala said that nature would take over.
The chairperson of the council was at the construction site.
She might have thought the tribe would be able to relocate before the home was washed away. Ms. Nelson thinks we need to begin. It's time to start building.
Even if the tribe gets a grant, it won't be enough to build a road up to the new site. The tribe wants the Bureau of Indian Affairs to create and staff a new department to manage its relocation efforts.
The Makah Reservation and tribe have very different designs on federal relocation money.
The reservation is made up of 47 square miles of mountains, valleys, and coastline. It is only accessible by a two lane road that goes between the Olympic Mountains and the Strait of Juan de Fuca.
The road is closed a lot because of slides. The land where the Makah have lived for thousands of years is accessible when it's passable. Fishing boats cluster in a sheltered harbor beneath a tree covered promontory, while cottages and restaurants overlook the bay.
The tribe is moving as storms get worse. On a recent morning, Patrick DePoe, the vice chairman of the Makah Tribe, andNate Tyler, its treasurer, went on a tour of a new community the tribe is building high above the bay. There was a row of new houses across the road from the preschool that was under construction.
Mr. DePoe said that the lot had been empty for a long time. All of our neighborhoods are being moved up.
The Makah Tribe does not have to worry about the water. The tribe has ten times the population as well as a fleet of fishing vessels and other businesses that make money.
The tribe needs help. They want to replace their 50-year-old cramped medical clinic with a bigger, more sophisticated one away from the water.
The director of the clinic thinks that the facility will give her peace of mind.
The tribe is applying for a grant of $3 million to build a new clinic. It would look for other sources of funding. The construction site has been prepared and ready to be used.
Mr. Tyler said it was almost shovel- ready.
The S'Klallam Tribe might move to the front of the line if the Biden administration funds projects that can be completed with enough money.
At the end of a quiet bay looking north to the San Juan Islands is the tribe's small reservation. Climate change is buffeting the reservation.
The mountains behind the reservation are not getting as much snow as they used to. Warming air makes it hard for salmon to survive. The tribe's clams are vulnerable to toxic algae for more of the year due to the ocean warming.
The tribe is trying to improve what it can with the funding it has. $3 million is needed to move two small buildings. One and a half is correct.
A two-story structure with offices on top and a lab below analyzes fish, clam and water samples to monitor evidence of climate change is next to a house. The buildings are too close to the water.
The tribe wanted to replace the house with a structure up the hill. The money left over wouldn't be enough to replace the office and lab building, so the tribe would keep the upper floor and build a new one.
The package that B.I.A. has put together is a good one. He said it would be great if it was $3 billion.
The chairman of the tribe said he appreciated the plight facing the bureau, as tribes nationwide face growing threats from climate change.
There are over 500 tribes in America, from Alaska to Florida. God help the B.I.A.
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