Olympic National Park officials should quickly respond to the Quileute's closure of a park-beach access trail by finding a way to help the tiny tribe on Washington's coast with its long-standing boundary issue.

The Quileute and the park need to break through the access-road stalemate. The solution should include the reopening of Second Beach, which is accessed through the reservation; and the Quileute should gain some developable land that will allow the tribe to address its concerns of crowding, flooding and the real threat of a tsunami. The Quileute say the park's boundaries on the northern end of the reservation were drawn with a survey from 1914, but that a survey from 1881 should have been used. That's because a storm in 1910 shifted the mouth of the Quillayute River, which was the reservation boundary, southward.

The Quileute want to be compensated, with land elsewhere, for the intruding boundary that gobbled up about 315 acres. Constant flooding in the lower village and last year's tsunami in Southeast Asia have also prompted the Quileute to want land on higher ground.

The boundary issue has flared again because the Quileute say the only land being offered is either lowlands or, as the tribe recently discovered, is designated as a wilderness area and cannot be developed.

Park officials say that ideas about the northern boundary and a land swap are still in the "brainstorming" phase. Fifty years of discussion is too long to still be brainstorming.

The Quileute Tribe is a growing nation with more than 750 members. The minuscule reservation is built out, imprisoned by an untouchable swath of forest and an unyielding ocean.

This is not a land grab or political play. The Quileute are faced with real issues. Tribal leaders have put pressure on the Park Service the only way they can, by controlling access through their land. After decades of futile negotiations, the Quileute are out of options, but the Park Service is not and can do something for the Quileute.