Blood, Trauma, and Biohazard Cleanup in Taholah, WA

Taholah is an unincorporated village and census-designated place (CDP) on the Quinault Indian Reservation in northwestern Grays Harbor County, Washington, where the Quinault River empties into the Pacific Ocean.

Taholah is the headquarters of the Quinault Indian Nation, whose tribal government was moved here from the town of Quinault on the shore of Lake Quinault.

The village was named in 1905 after a Quinault chief; its name in the Quinault language is tɑholɑ.

The modern Quinault Indian Nation brings together the Quinault and Queets peoples along with descendants of the Chehalis, Chinook, Cowlitz, Hoh and Quileute tribes.

The 2020 census counted 776 people in Taholah; in the 2000 census the CDP had 824 people in 240 households, and 93.2 percent of residents were Native American.

Taholah lies in a tsunami inundation zone and faces flooding from rising seas; a 2,000-foot seawall protects the village from the Pacific, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers raised it by 4 feet in 2014 after repeated breaches.

In 2015 the Quinault tribal government proposed relocating the whole village to higher ground southeast of the present site; the plan's estimated cost rose to $150 million by 2017, construction began in 2019, and its first building, the Generations Building senior and children center, opened in May 2021.

Taholah has a marine west coast climate with about 94 inches of rainfall a year.

Washington State Route 109 reaches its northern terminus at Taholah, running south about 9 miles to Moclips and 41 miles to Hoquiam.

Point Grenville, a major headland on the Washington coast about 3 miles south of the village, is called Point Haynisisoos by the Quinault people.