Agency conserves Skamania land, pays for timber value

The state Department of Natural Resources recently approved a plan to transfer 90 acres of state forest trust land in Skamania County to conservation status while paying the county government $648,795 for the value of the timber that won’t be cut down.

“Funds from this transfer will help support the many services our county provides that are important to the quality of life for our citizens and the fabric of our communities,” Skamania County Commissioner Bob Hamlin said in a press release.

The parcel is home to a number of nesting sites of the endangered northern spotted owl in a remote part of the county about eight miles northwest of Stevenson. It will become part of the Stevenson Ridge Natural Resources Conservation Area, which is managed by the Department of Natural Resources for conservation and low-impact recreation.

Some state-owned forests can’t be logged because they’re home to animals protected by the federal Endangered Species Act. That isn’t a big deal in counties with diversified tax bases, but in Skamania, Pacific and Wahkiakum counties, not cutting timber means less money for law enforcement, fire departments and road maintenance.

To ease the pain, the Legislature created the State Forest Trust Replacement to fund the transfer of certain lands into protected conservation status while still providing revenue to timber-dependent counties. DNR pays the county the market value of the timber as if it were being cut down. The department is also paid for the costs of managing the land. During the transfer, the department acts as if the land were being sold, so after assessing what it’s worth, it transfers that amount into a fund established to eventually buy other harvestable land elsewhere in the county. In effect, the move allows timber harvesting to resume, just in a different location.

Bob Redling, a public information officer for DNR, said this is the third purchase of its kind in Skamania County. For its part, DNR will receive $216,265 for its land management costs. The property’s value of just under $135,000 will be set aside to buy working forestland that isn’t home to any endangered species.

“It’ll be land that’s been cut recently, something maybe 20 years away from the next harvest,” he said.

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