by most, if not all, of the waterfowl and shorebird species found in the 

 flyway. Each fall about 10 million ducks and one million geese use the 

 flyway coming from their summer breeding grounds in Alaska and Canada to 

 winter in the interior portions of California. The large protected 

 saltwater area of Puget Sound with extensive shoreline and shoal water 

 estuaries, mud flats, and marsh vegetation provides ideal feeding and 

 resting areas for these waterfowl. 



The ocean coast of Washington State has large stretches of undeveloped 

 shoreline. However, the Seattle-Tacoma metropolitan area is intensely 

 developed with residential and commercial- industrial-transportation 

 facilities. The proximity of the Coast Range (Olympic Mountains) to the 

 ocean shore limits the area available for development. Most development 

 has occurred between the Coast Range and the more inland Cascade Range 

 on or near Puget Sound. Numerous recreation areas are located along the 

 ocean coast in areas of sandy beach. A part of Olympic National Park is 

 also located along the ocean coast. 



5.3.2 History of PCS Operations 



Between 1960 and 1964 several oil industry groups engaged in 

 exploratory operations on Washington State's outer continental shelf and 

 found, by geophysical surveys, numerous promising structures on the 

 shelf. In October 1964 the Federal government offered a total of 1,090,000 

 acres for oil and gas leasing in 11 separate areas off Washington and 

 Oregon. 2 Six major oil companies spent more than 7.7 million dollars in 

 acquiring offshore leases adjacent to Washington. 3 



Six exploratory wells were subsequently drilled on the continental 

 shelf off Washington. However, commercial quantities of oil were not 



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