Saturday, Jun. 07, 2008

State dedicates new forest near Ellensburg

By The Associated Press

YAKIMA -- State officials will dedicate a new forest in central Washington today, the culmination of a two-year negotiation over exchanging large swaths of land to consolidate thousands of acres of state trust lands.

The 71,000-acre Naneum Ridge State Forest, about 20 miles north of Ellensburg, is the second state forest created in the past three years. A mix of ponderosa pine and Douglas and white fir, the forest is habitat for deer, bears, cougars and abundant bird life, as well as spring and fall range for both the Yakima and Colockum elk herds.

The state traded 20,970 acres of state trust lands scattered in mostly small parcels across 15 counties to Boise, Idaho-based Western Pacific Timber LLC. The property included high-value land prime for development along the Interstate 5 corridor, plus property in Klickitat County that was contiguous to land already owned by Western Pacific.

In exchange, the state gained 82,548 acres of mostly forested new trust land on the east slope of the Cascades, some of which will create the new Naneum (pronounced NAN-um) forest.

Much of the land had been mingled in a checkerboard pattern with state property, making it more difficult for both entities to manage and complicating public access, wildlife habitat management and timber practices.

"What's really neat about it, it's big enough now that you can manage all these diverse aspects, rather than having a bunch of different owners," said Doug Sutherland, commissioner of public lands. "Then it's harder to keep it as open space, or as a working forest. Keeping it together is a great wildlife habitat, keeping it is a great recreational opportunity."

The land swap is part of a larger effort to consolidate state trust lands for better management financially, socially and environmentally. A similar land swap in 2005 created the Ahtanum State Forest, a 76,000-acre block of land about 20 miles west of Yakima.

Sutherland said the state also is negotiating with the state Department of Fish and Wildlife to exchange productive farm or timber lands for state-owned shrub-steppe habitat, also in the Colockum area east of the Cascades.

"Shrub-steppe grows really nice habitat for shrubs and rabbits, but I've not yet found a market for that," Sutherland said. "We're hopeful another exchange can be made to benefit everyone."

Environment and conservation groups praised the latest agreement.

"The main concern is that DNR has the role of raising money for the state trust. When you have all those parcels, they're difficult to manage and you're not raising any revenue," Bill Robinson, director of state government relations for the Nature Conservancy of Washington, said in a statement.

"The tendency usually is to dispose of those lands. Rather than dispose of that property, it'd be better to keep our natural resource lands whole," he said. "It will really help to reserve that land for the long-term benefit of the trust in the state, as well as for wildlife and public access."

Timber sales and agricultural production, such as corn, hay, wine grapes and other crops, on state trust lands provide money to build or remodel public schools and universities. State trust lands produced $344 million in fiscal year 2007, which ran from July 1, 2006, through June 30, 2007.