Blanchard Mountain Plan Mixes Logging, Recreation
By Katie N. Johannes, The Bellingham Herald, Wash.
Feb. 13–Hikers will continue to hike, loggers will continue to log, and hang gliders will continue to hang glide if an agreement reached by 10 people with divergent interests related to the future of Blanchard Mountain is accepted by a state official.
The Blanchard Forest Strategies Group, appointed by state Commissioner of Public Lands Doug Sutherland, has met about 10 times since June to hash out their differences and reach consensus on the best way to manage about 4,827 acres of state Department of Natural Resources forest trust land. Public comment on the agreement and recommendations will be received through the end of February (see box), and Sutherland’s decision is expected by the end of March.
Located west of Interstate 5 and near Bellingham, the mountain is touted for recreation, including hiking, biking and horseback riding along trails. Hang gliders and paragliders can drive up a logging road to a launch site. It offers views of Samish Bay, the San Juan Islands and the Skagit Valley. And it is home to a variety of flora and fauna.
Timber sales from the forest provide revenue for Skagit County, Burlington-Edison schools and other smaller taxing districts. A key element of the agree-
ment calls for allowing 1,600 acres of forest at the top of the mountain to grow into an old forest, providing habitat for wildlife and leaving it available for recreation.
Some group members representing conservation and recreation interests went into the process hoping to prevent DNR from logging 2,800 acres.
“We got 1,200 acres less, but we did get most of the best land (at the top),” said Mitch Friedman, a group member representing the Bellingham-based environmental group Conservation Northwest.
“If you ask me if 1,600 acres is enough, I would say no,” Friedman said. “It’s painful to give up some really beautiful, unroaded forest. But if you asked me if the agreement overall is good, I’d say yes, absolutely.”
Other group members echoed the sentiment that no one got everything he or she wanted, but in the end, the agreement was a good compromise — one that at the outset seemed impossible to reach.
“In my 27 years in the Department of Natural Resources, I have never seen a group that functioned this way,” said DNR senior policy adviser Clay Sprague. “There were times when I thought, ‘I don’t know if we’re going to make it.’”
But he said a spirit of collaboration and respect allowed them to reach agreement.
Without the 1,600 acres available for logging at the top, DNR has to figure out how to ensure the taxing districts won’t lose any funding.
During the last 12 years, logging on Blanchard generated about $2.7 million, Sprague said.
Nearly a quarter went back to DNR to manage trust lands, and the remaining money was divided among Skagit County government, the Burlington-Edison School District and other small taxing districts.
The group agreed to ask the state Legislature to cover the value of the timber — about $11.6 million — over five years, Sprague said.
That money would be used to acquire more land to replace revenue for the taxing districts.
DNR would recalculate the amount of timber to harvest on the 83,000 acres of forest trust land countywide. The group agreed on additional requirements to maintain the aesthetics of the mountain, so that it doesn’t appear to be a patchwork of logged areas from below.
Sprague said he hopes the process will set a precedent, using the same principles to balance individual interests, provide tax revenue and protect forests from residential development.
“Whether you’re from preservation, conservation, timber or recreation interests, if you convert forest to houses, you’ve lost your opportunities for any of those things,” he said. “By agreeing on Blanchard, we’re making statements on the larger issues of conversion of land.”
—–
Copyright (c) 2007, The Bellingham Herald, Wash.
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News.
For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.