Land preservation: ‘A mission that you can visibly see, feel and touch’

WENATCHEE — The total protected land in Chelan and Douglas counties is 26,858 acres.

To help put that into perspective, Chelan County has 1,916,160 acres, while Douglas County has 1,183,360 acres. The permanently protected land may seem small in comparison, but it’s likely big for those who enjoy the outdoors and for tourism. The source behind the protected land? The nonprofit Chelan-Douglas Land Trust (CDLT).

The trust recently won the Progress Award — given to a person or organization for efforts to move their community forward in 2023. Community members nominated organizations and people among five categories, including the Progress Award, for The Wenatchee World’s NCW Community Impact Awards.

For the CDLT, moving the community forward included making some landmark land exchanges and creating a new position to target underserved residents.

Those looking around Chelan and Douglas counties might notice some prominent features.

“The iconic parts of Wenatchee are here because of the work that the land trust has done,” said Elisa Lopez, CDLT engagement manager. “They’re (parcels) protected and they’re accessible for everyone… It was a team effort for the (Apple Capital Recreation) Loop Trail. We were part of the team that made that happen. Saddle Rock is another iconic thing that people come to Wenatchee for, and the balsamroot, the Wenatchee Foothills and that flower, and all of our native plants.”

“We always talk internally about how we drive to the west side and you see the big billboards of ‘Visit Wenatchee,’ and it’s always a picture of sage hills and the balsamroot and somebody on their mountain bike or kids hiking. So the selling point for Wenatchee is our natural spaces,” Lopez continued.

“I feel like that’s a big reason, too, why there’s a lot of people that want to move here, because of all the natural places that we have, and how beautiful they are and how well taken care of they are,” said Dania Contreras, communications coordinator.

The two chimed in about the award.

“I think that our organization has a mission that you can visibly see, feel and touch, which is protected land,” Lopez said. “I would say there’s like two things that tug at our heartstrings, and it’s always puppies and nature.”

“That (being chosen) already, to me, tells me a lot… that says that we are already reaching our community the way that we should,” Contreras said. “I know we still have a lot of improvement to do, but that says that we are improving.”

In December 2022/January 2023, the CDLT matched a $491,750 grant by the city of Wenatchee from the state’s Wildlife and Recreation Program with a 16-5-acre land donation from the Jacobson Preserve and donors’ cash. The total estimated cost was $983,500. This more than doubled the size of the Saddle Rock area, with 430 acres, and connected the Saddle Rock Natural Area to the Jacobson Preserve.

Then, in April 2023, the CDLT bought 19.78 acres for about $500,000 from the Gordanier Family Trust through community donations. On Jan. 11, 2024, the CDLT sold the property on the east side of Saddle Rock to the city of Wenatchee for $247,500, plus closing costs. The land is one of three parcels of more than 500 acres on the southern edge of the city that the city plans to use for non-motorized recreation, education and habitat preservation for its Foothills Regional Recreation Area Project, according to Wenatchee Mayor Mike Poirier.

“Fortunately, we’ve been able to conserve areas from the south end, from Saddle Rock, all the way up to Horse Lake and various entrance points in the middle, so we can hopefully spread people around a little bit and not put too much strain on the resources,” Fleming said.

In October 2023, the CDLT acquired 398 acres, expanding the Castle Rock Natural Area in the Wenatchee Foothills Trail System. The land owners donated half of the property’s fair market value to the CDLT, which matched the other half with a critical habitat grant from the Washington Wildlife and Recreation Program.

“One piece (parcel) has Castle Rock itself and it rises up from there all the way to Forest Service property,” Fleming said of the October acquisition.

Land transactions vary. In some instances, “the trust doesn’t own the land, but rather has a conservation easement, trail easement, or some partial interest where the ownership is still in the private landowner, and CDLT is the holder of an agreement that preserves the land permanently, or allows a special use, like a trail open to the public,” according to Mickey Fleming, CDLT lands program manager.

“I know that the unique thing that sets us apart, and all land trusts in the nation, is that we do it (conservation) permanently,” Lopez said. “So it can never be undone.”

State law, RCW 64.04.130, signed in 2013, was meant “to protect, preserve, maintain, improve, restore, limit the future use of, or conserve for open space purposes, any land or improvement on the land.”

Language in conservation easements, or voluntary agreements, is tailored to whoever is signing the agreement with the land trust, according to the Washington Association of Land Trusts. The agreement permanently limits the use of land to protect conservation values. Property owners continue to own and use their land and can sell it or pass it on to heirs. The easement is associated with the property’s title, so the land is protected forever, even when it changes hands.

“The parties agree to that,” Fleming said. “It is binding to all of their successors and assigns forever. That’s what makes it permanent… It’s a permanent obligation on behalf of the holder, the land trust, to monitor that easement forever to be sure that future owners comply with its requirements.

“Usually the person we deal with, who wants to conserve their property, is all gung-ho about it and we work together to develop the terms of the easement, but somebody in the future may come along…. the owner’s supposed to give us notice if they’re going to be selling the property, but they may be a little less enthusiastic. So we just do the education with them about what it means, and we monitor every conservation easement at least once a year.”

That includes visiting the property and seeing if the owners are planning changes.

“It’s mainly good communication between the landowner and the land trust about what’s going on on the property,” Fleming said. “Obviously, we want to have good relationships with our people… They’ll ask a question. ‘Is this within my reserve rights of what I can do?’ ‘Is this any problem?’ And we’ll work all that out with them.”

The land trust also provides advice to owners, Fleming said, such as connecting them with resources to help rid problem weeds.

“The big lesson here is we have an incredibly generous community that has invested person by person, checkbook by checkbook, in being sure that these lands in our foothills are protected,” Fleming said. “No tax money goes into these acquisitions here. That state grant program is run through the state and their capital budget.”

The CDLT manages the trail systems on all of its acquisitions, which is expensive, Fleming said. About 1,000 members, anyone who donates any amount to the CDLT, and 189 volunteers help maintain the paths. Besides normal wear and tear, the CDLT deals with other trail issues.

“Things you never expected, fire, which unfortunately you do sort of have to expect, trespass, vandalism.”

She added the CDLT took down a couple of 100-year-old or so buildings in the Horse Lake area due to vandalism, but one barn remained. Since the beginning of the pandemic, the CDLT has seen an increasing uptick in visitors. No numbers were available pre-pandemic, but in May 2023, a CDLT employee counted 237 people on the Horse Lake Trail.

“People just go out and use the trails. They don’t spend much time thinking about, ‘Oh, how is this protected?’ or ‘Who’s paying for this?,’ and I wouldn’t expect them to,” Fleming said. “A lot of people are benefitting from the contributions of a fairly small group.”

“We would love to have more members,” Fleming added. She also said the CDLT likely wouldn’t run out of money due to generous donations to various funds in the organization, which operates on a $1.2 million annual budget.

One of the CDLT’s goals this year is engagement, Lopez said.

She was hired in April 2023 for a new position as community inclusion coordinator. Part of the CDLT’s diversity, equity, and inclusion goals is to have more representation of minority groups in the Wenatchee Valley on the hiking trails, Lopez said, which she’ll still be part of even though her title changed recently.

“I refer back to this quote: ‘You protect what you know, and you know what you are taught,’” Lopez said in June 2023. “When you include that other 35% of Latinos (in Wenatchee) that’s just more people falling in love with nature. That’s more people voting in favor of conservation and our environment.”

But it’s also about the future, she said earlier this month. “We want to start building relationships with the next generation of donors.”

“The fact is, the organization’s 38 years old (going on 39), and so the founders if you will, (were) folks in their 40s and 50s. Well, do the math… Really to continue the momentum of this work, and there’s still plenty to do, we need the next generation of people to join in the effort,” Fleming said.

“And more diverse people,” Lopez added of her department’s goals. “It’s also really taking care of our current donors, having our current members special and like they are valued, having member-only events, special opportunities, dinners, barbecues.”

Other departments’ goals varied, Fleming said, and she couldn’t talk about her land deals in progress, so she mentioned another department’s.

“Build more trails.”