Blanchard Mountain Forested Core Protection Funded

The Capital Budget Bill that was passed this week included $10M for the Trust Land Transfer program for the “Harriet Spanel Forest” which is Blanchard Mountain. This funding will enable the full protection of the 1600-acre forested “core” of Blanchard Mountain as outlined in the 2007 Blanchard Strategies Agreement. The funding is due in large part to the tremendous community support for protecting Blanchard. Over the past decade, thousands of constituents reached out to their state representatives. Outreach was particularly important as the Agreement’s deadline for funding was ending.

Trust Land Transfer is a mechanism that allowed the core forest lands on Blanchard to be transferred to conservation status, while replacing these lands with other working forest lands elsewhere in Skagit County that will benefit schools. The WA State Department of Natural Resources (DNR) worked with legislators to address some issues affecting junior taxing districts that historically received a portion of their funding from the Blanchard land that is now protected (i.e. the Burlington Edison School District). DNR also had to do an internal land exchange because DNR’s holdings in Skagit County don’t have enough of the specific classification of land to do the entire Trust Land Transfer. But all of this is a process DNR and the Blanchard Advisory committee were willing to work through.

Skagit Land Trust will continue to serve on this committee. We are confident Blanchard will be protected now that the funding is available. Thank you to everyone – you did it! Thank you to the following legislators and others involved for their work and support:

• Bill Wallace of the Burlington Edison School Board
• All of the 40th delegation (Ranker, Morris, Lytton)
• Representative Steve Tharinger (Capital Budget Chair)
• Skagit County Commissioner Janicki
• Land Commissioner Hilary Franz and her staff