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HomeMy WebLinkAboutJefferson County Forest Opportunities Letter to CPL FranzBoard of County Commissioners 1820 Jefferson Street PO Box 1220 Port Townsend, WA 98368 Kate Dean, District 1 Heidi Eisenhour, District 2 Greg Brotherton, District 3 June 27, 2023 Hilary Franz, Commissioner of Public Lands Department of Natural Resources MS 47001 Olympia, WA 98504-7001 Dear Commissioner Franz, Thank you for your letter dated June 7, 2023. The Jefferson County Board of Commissioners are very interested in the collaboration you propose, and we look forward to working with you and your team on the next steps. We are also writing to express our interest in being actively involved in all aspects of the implementation of the new Natural Climate Solutions (NCS) investments and in the next round of the revitalized Trust Land Transfer program. As you say in your June 7 letter- it is great to have these new tools! We are especially excited about is the potential for an even more robust forest products economy in Jefferson County than we have had for some time via all of the allowances for replacement lands via the NCS proviso. With the NCS funding for replacement land, we are keenly interested in growing the base of working forest lands in Jefferson County. It is important to our economy and to our communities. We see great potential for DNR to acquire significant acreage from private forestland owners with areas that would connect well with existing DNR managed lands and be in the same junior taxing districts as many of our conservation priorities. We see opportunities to use investment in replacement lands also as a way to prevent conversion of forest lands which we know is a stated priority in the NCS proviso. We, and our local stakeholders, look forward to working with you on the implementation of the $70 million dollars for replacement lands. We are also actively collaborating on the next steps on the previous proviso finding replacement land for encumbered lands. We have worked with a local team of experts to identify about 2500 acres of timberland owned by Rayonier that not only are productive resource lands but are also adjacent to other working forests, recreation and conservation lands. Towards addressing the 2000 acres of structurally complex, carbon dense forests the $70M in the proviso allows for protecting, we have done a significant amount of analysis and planning already so we have a preliminary list of top priorities. Once DNR communicates the guidance on the selection process we can refine the final list. Here are some of the parcels we see as strong candidates totaling nearly 500 acres: Phone (360) 385-9100 Fax (360) 385-9382 jeffbocc@co.jefferson.wa.us Commissioner Franz Page 2 of 5 June 27, 2023 DNR ParcelSys# Name Trust 6298 Camp Harmony Common School and Indemnity (going to SFT with Intertrust X) 6312 Dabob West State Forest Transfer 6498 Disco State Forest Transfer 6328 Silent Lake Common School and Indemnity (going to SFT with Intertrust X) 6342 Tarboo East State Forest Transfer 114283 Tarboo East State Forest Transfer Dabob Bay Natural Area Boundary Expansion- Thank you for all the work and collaboration to date on conservation around Dabob Bay. This area remains a high priority for Jefferson County conservation. Work has been underway for several years on a proposed expansion of the Dabob Bay Natural Area. Several of our top priorities for NCS conservation acreage are within the proposed expansion boundary. Other nearby parcels would make good candidates for future Trust Land Transfers but, per DNR guidance, the boundary expansion would need to be approved before areas can be nominated as an expansion area for TLT. It should be noted that much of the proposed expansion area was included in the DNR nominated carbon project sites. We would like to begin the process now of formally asking for DNRs approval of the proposed boundary expansion. Doing this now will help as we plan the best sequence of steps and decide which tools to use for different parcels. Trust Land Transfer- We are interested in supporting projects for the upcoming round and for subsequent rounds. As previously noted, there are several logical candidates in the proposed Dabob Natural Area expansion area, but the boundary expansion has to be done before the parcels can be considered for TLT. There are other parcel candidates where TLT or NCS could be used. This is a topic that would definitely benefit from discussion with the DNR team. Here are about 1500 acres of parcels that have been identified as near- term candidates for TLT with the majority included for Dabob Expansion: DNR ParcelSys# Name Trust 6297 Eaton State Forest Transfer 6294 Eaton State Forest Transfer 6327 Silent Lake State Forest Transfer (Part is in Current Boundary) 6331 Silent Lake State Forest Transfer (Part is in Current Boundary) 6531 Duckabush Upper Common School and Indemnity 116472 Silent Lake - NEW Common School and Indemnity 114283 Tarboo East State Forest Transfer Reconveyance or Co-management lands- We are also interested in reconveyance or co- management scenarios of certain DNR lands north of the Highway 104. These lands have been identified as ideal properties for Jefferson County to potentially manage for multiple community benefits on the county scale including recreation, low-intensity timber management through uneven-aged selective timber harvesting, and encouraging ecological diversity in forests. Our team has identified and discussed these properties as appropriate for county management in a win-win because they are lower productivity and more difficult for DNR operations, while they are ideal the county to manage with lower intensity community forest management models that meet multiple goals for the higher density population centers nearby. Commissioner Franz Page 3 of 5 June 27, 2023 Here are the parcels that we have identified and discussed with DNR regional staff: DNR ParcelSys# Name Trust 6349 Anderson Lake Common School and Indemnity 6247 Beaver Valley Common School and Indemnity (going to SFT with Intertrust X) 6519 Cape George Common School and Indemnity (going to SFT with Intertrust X) 6354 West Jacob Miller Common School and Indemnity (going to SFT with Intertrust X) 6253 Teal Lake East State Forest Transfer 6254 Teal Lake West State Forest Transfer 6261 Termination Point University - Original Thank you for considering our plans and priorities. We’ve included two map images (also linked here) that illustrate the proposals outlined above as well as parcel proposals that have been discussed over the past couple of years. We look forward to working together and appreciate your offer of heightened collaboration. What’s our next step? Thank you, Kate Dean, District No. 1 Heidi Eisenhour, District No. 2 Greg Brotherton, Chair, District No. 3 CC: Todd Welker, DNR State Uplands Mona Griswold, DNR Drew Rosenbalm, DNR Olympic Region Brian Turner, DNR Olympic Region Bob Winslow, DNR Commissioner Franz Page 4 of 5 June 27, 2023 Commissioner Franz Page 5 of 5 June 27, 2023