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Blanchard Forest
Blanchard Forest: A Working ForestBlanchard Forest is comprised of 4,800 acres of forested state trust lands managed by the state Department of Natural Resources (DNR). The forest is centered on the southern-most mountain of the majestic Chuckanut Range, just south of the Skagit/Whatcom county line, representing a coastal forest in a community setting.
NEWS ARTICLES
Lawsuit Against Blanchard Plan of Devious Design
Lawsuit Against Blanchard Plan of Devious Design
Skagit Valley Herald
September 23, 2007
Opponents of logging on Blanchard Mountain have outdone themselves with a strategy that is as dishonorable as it is devious.
Now the Chuckanut Conservancy and the North Cascades Conservation Council of Seattle have filed a lawsuit against the state Department of Natural Resources pretending to protect the very interests they oppose.
The lawsuit also points to a clear link between the Chuckanut Conservancy and the proposed Chuckanut Mountains Park District, created by many of the same individuals opposed to any logging on Blanchard Mountain.
The proposed park district would tax property from Bellingham to Bow, ostensibly to help pay for improvements to recreational lands within its boundaries and to finance acquisition of new park lands. Slightly more of the district would be in Whatcom County, but the centerpiece would still be Blanchard Mountain, which lies within Skagit County. Governance would be dominated by Whatcom County, with 92 percent of the eligible voters in the district.
The mountain is prized by many for its recreational value. It also is situated on trust lands managed by the DNR, which, by law, must see that revenue from timber sales is distributed to designated beneficiary agencies, all in Skagit County. Among the local governmental units relying on that revenue is the Burlington-Edison School District, which uses the money to help finance new facilities.
With the help of a nine-member strategies group that included recreation and environmental representatives, the DNR crafted a compromise that would protect a 1,600-acre “core” area from logging and reduce the overall amount of logging on the mountain.
The revenue lost to the trust land beneficiaries would be offset by lands purchased near Blanchard Mountain for future timber harvest. The Legislature has already approved $4 million as a “down payment” on the estimated $12.5 million that will be needed to complete the compensating land purchases.
The lawsuit claims that the DNR did not adequately consider the future environmental impacts of the Blanchard plan. However, it doesn’t note that, without the plan, the DNR could legally allow far more logging on the mountain. And the lawsuit’s claim that the DNR plan didn’t weigh the lost revenue to trust land beneficiaries is laughable. The Chuckanut Conservancy and its co-plaintiff could care less about the impact on local government from the loss of timber revenue.
The compromise plan for management of Blanchard Mountain isn’t perfect in the eyes of any single interest represented, but it is as close as it could be to a perfect compromise.
Some of those parties who didn’t get their way with the DNR plan now seek to scuttle it by other means. It would be ironic if they killed the DNR management plan and ended up with more logging than the compromise would have allowed.
* Editorials reflect the consensus opinion of the editorial board and are written by its members: Publisher L. Stedem Wood, Editor Don Nelson and City Editor Dick Clever.
Blanchard Solution Balances Values
Skagit Valley Herald
By Doug Sutherland - 11:10 am
August 21 , 2007
Voices of the Valley
I offer a sincere and hearty thank you to the Blanchard Strategies Group members and the community for the countless hours you contributed to this important work, and for the strategies themselves.
You exhibited such courage and dedication, and the willingness to look beyond your own strongly held interests to find common solutions that will be good for the greater community for years to come. You achieved a hard-fought consensus on strategies to protect the multiple values of this unique working forest.
The Blanchard forest is state trust lands that are managed by Washington’s Department of Natural Resources as part of the 3 million acres of sustainable working landscapes.
I invite you, the community, to carefully study the map that helps show the recommended Blanchard forest solutions that the group offered and that I just accepted. You will find a striking balance of values that serves the state trust well and that reflects the community values.
The whole forest will offer different types of recreational and educational experiences, and forest types that range from old forest to thinned areas to open, young forest stands. Some areas have an emphasis on revenue production to help support Skagit County services and local schools; other areas emphasize long-term older forest conditions and recreation.
The map shows where views from the valley below will be taken into account when harvests are designed. Some people want to see all the forests such as Blanchard become parks, but Blanchard will be so much more valuable as we enjoy the multiple benefits.
The strategies include the use of a citizen-based committee to advise on future activities on Blanchard. The strategies also include the need to find properties adjacent to or near Blanchard to replace the acres included in the 1,600-acre “core” (where the emphasis will be on older forest conditions and recreation rather than just revenue production).
When the 2007 Legislature was considering the issue of funding these replacement trust land purchases, members of the Blanchard Strategies Group spent time in Olympia talking with them to help make that happen. And it did.
The Legislature appropriated $4 million (of the $12 million ultimately needed) to help the state Department of Natural Resources get started. Buying those forests not only replaces lost income-producing lands in the “core,” it prevents parcels adjacent to Blanchard forest and other areas in the fast-growing part of the Puget lowlands from being converted from forests and then being developed.
The Blanchard Strategies Group and I think this is a critical component of the Blanchard solution, because Washington’s working, natural resource landscapes are under pressure of conversion. Our working forests and agricultural lands are being lost to development at an alarming rate.
This results in a loss of productive and beautiful landscapes and the quality of life associated with them. It also results in loss of wildlife habitat, loss of homegrown products and jobs. Moreover, Washington has some of the highest environmental standards for its forest practices in the world. Loss of these working landscapes increases our reliance on products from places that may not use sustainable practices.
Over the past two years, while we have been working on plans for Blanchard, the issue of losing productive natural resource landscapes to development has become a very hot topic for study at our universities, in the Legislature and in our communities.
About 1 percent of forests are converted each year in our state. This threatens to destroy not only our state’s quality of life, but also the natural resource economies that fuel the livelihoods of small communities that rely on timber, mills, specialty wood products and the supporting infrastructure around those.
We don’t want to see a tipping point at which there is not enough timber to supply the mills to keep them in operation.
Blanchard is a demonstration of what can be achieved when seemingly conflicting interests work together. It’s our only hope if we are to retain Washington’s valuable forest and agricultural lands and the enduring wealth of natural resources that are this state’s legacy, and its future.
* Doug Sutherland is the Washington State Commissioner of Public Lands.
Blanchard Mountain Forest Plan Challenged
Skagit Valley Herald
September 21, 2007
Two conservation groups have filed a lawsuit against the state Department of Natural Resources for what they call inadequate environmental and financial reviews of a new Blanchard Mountain forest plan.
The lawsuit filed in King County Superior Court opened a new front in the battle against logging on the mountain by those seeking to preserve it for recreation and environmental protection.
The agency adopted the plan last month for the 4,827 acres of forest it manages on the mountain. The plan came out of a compromise developed after months of discussions by a nine-member strategies group. The plan attempted to balance the interests of recreationists, logging, and the Skagit County school districts and local governmental units that benefit from timber revenue.
The plan sets aside a 1,600-acre “core” that would not be logged commercially and calls for the acquisition of new forestlands to compensate for the lost timber revenue from the core. As an added benefit, according to the DNR, the new forestlands would be insulated from the strong development pressures in Skagit County.
The petitioners in the lawsuit, the Bellingham-based Chuckanut Conservancy and the North Cascades Conservation Council of Seattle, asked the judge to bar the DNR from any logging on Blanchard Mountain until the agency conducts a more thorough environmental impact study and provides a better financial accounting.
The conservation groups claim that the DNR did not consider the cumulative impacts of the new forest plan but instead relied on future environmental reviews of each project as it is proposed, according to the legal complaint, filed Sept. 12.
Known environmental impacts, including those due to construction of logging roads, should have been assessed before the strategies were adopted, not after, the complaint said.
The conservancy groups also argue that the DNR did not fully weigh the cost to governments such as Skagit County and the Burlington-Edison School District, which could lose revenue as a result of reduced timber harvests. The DNR also does not say enough about how purchase of the new, replacement timberlands will be funded, the suit claims.
The Legislature this year provided $4 million for the purchase of forestlands at risk of development, DNR officials have said. That’s one-third of the total value of the core area, according to the DNR.
The legal brief says the DNR overlooked one possible funding solution: a proposed Chuckanut Mountains Park District, whose proponents estimate that it would collect $700,000 annually in property taxes to go toward conservation measures.
Some of that money could go to Skagit County and the school district in lieu of timber revenues, a park district supporter said.
“It’s a possibility,” said Frank Evantoff, who is a member of both the Chuckanut Conservancy and the park district citizen’s advisory committee.
“We would like to sit down with the DNR and review their options with them, because I don’t think they really did that,” Evantoff added.
Evantoff and Ken Wilcox spearhead the Chuckanut Conservancy and are both co-chairs of the park district advisory committee. However, Evantoff said the park district group is not involved in the lawsuit.
The DNR has yet to file its response in court.
“We’re very disappointed that there’s a legal challenge to the strategy,” DNR spokeswoman Jane Chavey said. “The diverse strategies group, they grappled for almost a year to come up with various benefits for the forest.”
A member of that strategies group, Mitch Friedman of Conservation Northwest, also expressed disappointment over the lawsuit.
“It’s not my usual position to be quoted against a lawsuit, but this is an agreement a lot of people worked hard on, and I think this is the right way to go forward,” said Friedman, Conservation Northwest’s founder and executive director.
“The plan does a really good job of balancing protection and working forests that won’t get developed,” Friedman added.
Conservation Northwest is likely to intervene in the lawsuit on behalf of the DNR, Friedman said.
Brad Wellman of the conservation group Coast Watch Society, also represented in the strategies group, said he supported the lawsuit. Despite his group’s participation in the strategies group, he didn’t agree with the outcome because it didn’t represent recreationists, Wellman said.
“I’m happy as the president of Coast Watch Society that somebody is slowing down this process,” Wellman said.
The first hearing on the lawsuit is scheduled for Nov. 20 in Seattle.
* Ralph Schwartz can be reached at 360-416-2138 or rschwartz@skagitvalleyherald.com.
Debate on Blanchard Mountain’s Future Continues
Skagit Valley Herald
June 10, 2007
During a crucial month when their proposal is open to public review, members of a group seeking to set aside open space for recreation and wildlife on land from Bow Hill Road to Bellingham choose their words carefully.
In response to members of the public who support revenue from timber harvesting, some members of the Chuckanut Mountains Park District advisory group indicate they would take no action to halt logging on Blanchard Mountain, which is included within the proposed district boundaries.
But in letters to the Department of Natural Resources, other members of the Chuckanut group strongly oppose logging on Blanchard Mountain. They argue that enhanced recreational tourism would replace lost logging dollars.
Blanchard Mountain is managed by DNR, and some of the logging revenue is divided among local agencies, including the Burlington-Edison School District.
Conservationists have for years sought to end logging on the mountain, a popular hiking destination within a few minutes’ drive from Bellingham. Representatives of beneficiary agencies, conservationists and the state hammered out an agreement earlier this year, after nine months of discussions. The compromise reduced logging on the Mountain in exchange for timberland elsewhere.
Many of the activists involved in the Blanchard agreement are also trying to establish the park district, a move viewed with some skepticism by Skagit County officials. About half the Chuckanut Mountains Park District would be in Skagit County’s northwest corner.
A question of revenue
Bow resident Leslie Braun challenged members of the Chuckanut Park District advisory committee at a hearing before Skagit County commissioners May 29 on what their intentions are with logging on Blanchard Mountain.
“If logging is halted, then that money wouldn’t go to United General Hospital (and) the school district...,” Braun said. “Taxpayers would have to carry the burden.”
In response, park district committee member Ann Eissinger downplayed the notion that her group posed a threat to logging and the revenue it generates, saying it has no authority over logging or land use.
In an interview two days after the hearing, Eissinger reasserted that her group would not challenge logging on Blanchard Mountain. “Are we a threat to timber? No,” said Eissinger, who lives on Blanchard Mountain.
Logging revenues from Blanchard Mountain fluctuate year to year, Burlington-Edison School District Finance Director Greg Thramer said, but they can be as high as $400,000 or $500,000 a year — up to 1.5 percent of the school district’s total budget.
“With a budget that tight, that’s a pretty key 1 percent,” Thramer said.
Burlington-Edison Superintendent Rick Jones said he doesn’t want to lose that revenue because it would take away from services provided to the students.
“The only other place to make that up is to go to the taxpayers,” Jones said.
United General Hospital Communications Director Valerie Stafford said the hospital’s timber revenue is small, and possible changes to logging practices on Blanchard Mountain have not been discussed recently by the hospital’s board.
Blanchard’s “fiscal future”
The logging issue is not being ignored by supporters of the park district. At the commissioner’s hearing, group member Robert Gibb said, “The logging problem as an agricultural product is being discussed at other levels.”
Frank Evantoff, another park district committee member, wrote in a letter to the state Department of Natural Resources that the 1,600 acres on Blanchard Mountain recently removed from timber harvesting were inadequate to protect habitat and serve other environmental needs. This protected “core area” is one third of the state-owned land on Blanchard Mountain.
In his May 22 letter, Evantoff called for a logging moratorium on Blanchard Mountain until more scientific studies were done.
Gibb, a Whatcom County resident, also wrote to DNR about the Blanchard compromise, arguing that “catastrophic damage” could result from runoff after a heavy rain if most of the DNR land remained open to loggers.
“Recreation and tourism are the fiscal future of the Blanchard state forest, and mechanisms must be developed to allow those users and the community in general to provide funds for maintenance and development,” Gibb wrote in his May 21 letter.
Although Gibb didn’t name the Chuckanut park district in the letter, his group sees the park district filling a void by providing funds for recreation — Blanchard’s “fiscal future.”
Providing funds for recreation, for projects like building and maintaining trails throughout the district, is part of an overall vision to “preserve the rare beauty, unique ecology and recreational value” of the Chuckanut Mountains, as Eissinger put it.
The group proposes a new property tax, 25 cents for every $1,000 of assessed property value, that would generate $700,000 annually. Eissinger said the group hopes to double its income by attracting more money from grants.
Taxation without representation?
State law allows park districts to collect up to 75 cents per $1,000, or $225 per year on a $300,000 home, but it would require a vote of the residents to increase faster than 1 percent a year.
The money could also be spent on property acquisition, conservation easements and acquisition of mining and logging rights, according to the group’s Web site, http://www.chuckanutmpd.org.
Park district proponents collected 2,470 signatures on petitions, more than the 2,300 needed to take the proposal to a vote of residents within its boundaries. Of the signatures received, 132, or 5.3 percent, were from Skagit County residents.
Before making it onto the ballot, the park district plan must be approved by the boundary review boards in Skagit and Whatcom counties. Individuals and public agencies have until June 22 to request a hearing before the Skagit County boundary review board.
Skagit County Fire District 5 has submitted a letter to the board tentatively requesting a hearing. The county commissioners have spoken skeptically about the proposal, so the fire district and some residents are waiting to see if the commissioners request a hearing, boundary review board staff member Carole Korelin said.
Fire District 5 will go forward with its request if the commissioners don’t, Korelin said.
Skagit County Commissioner Ken Dahlstedt believes Skagit County voters are under-represented in the proposed park district. Skagit County residents make up 7.6 percent of the voting population, while roughly half the park district land lies within the county.
“They’re going to have little or no say about their taxes. It’s like a British colony,” Dahlstedt said.
“If there’s lot of support in Whatcom County, then it’s a good thing for them to do. But for them to be racing down and grabbing land in Skagit County is not really appropriate.”
The two other commissioners said they would like to call for a hearing before the boundary review board.
“Public input doesn’t hurt in any process, so I personally would like to see it go to that,” Commissioner Sharon Dillon said.
Hearing could cause delay
Commissioner Don Munks didn’t see any reason to rush the matter to a vote this year when he and several others still have questions about the proposed boundaries and who will run the park district.
Munks, who said he wants to invoke the boundary review board process, expects the commissioners to consider taking that action before the June 22 deadline.
The criteria the review board must consider when ruling on the issue include how irregular and impractical the boundaries are. The issue of most concern to Dahlstedt would not be enough for the review board to deny the park district, Korelin said.
“The disparity in the voters could be a factor, but that factor alone would not be a deciding factor,” she said.
If a hearing is requested, that could delay approval another 120 days and jeopardize the park district’s chances of getting on the November ballot. District supporters must file their intent to get on that ballot by Sept. 7.
Eissinger said if her group can’t make that deadline, it may call for a special election next year or alter the district’s boundaries.
“But I doubt that would be a viable option,” she said, referring to the boundary change.
Bill Wallace, regional manager for the Department of Natural Resources, says he hopes to learn more about the Chuckanut park district proposal, even as his agency remains under assault by some of its committee members.
Evantoff, for one, accused the DNR of staging the compromise process and stacking the 10-member Blanchard Strategy Group with representatives of logging interests.
“DNR is really in a learning mode in terms of what the role of a metropolitan park district would play as part of our (Blanchard) forest land, in terms of how they could help assist or maybe even hinder our trust management activities,” Wallace said.
More money for recreational support would be a good thing, Wallace said, but funding methods are already in place. The DNR plans to collaborate with the county and the state park system to fund recreational projects once the Blanchard compromise comes out of the review period, Wallace said.
Wallace: “The question is, is that in the interest of the community that such a metropolitan park district could occur, when you have other agencies that have that responsibility?”
• Ralph Schwartz can be reached at 360-416-2138 or rschwartz@skagitvalleyherald.com.
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