A group of volunteer citizens Monday got started ranking five projects that seek money from Island County’s Conservation Futures Fund.
That group, the Citizens’ Advisory Board, is expected, by next week, to release a report for consideration by the county’s Board of Commissioners, which makes the final decision on the projects, said Don Mason, the funding program’s administrator.
Though Monday’s meeting solicited public comment, little was forthcoming.
Three Whidbey Island projects are under consideration for funding. They are as follows:
n The Whidbey Camano Land Trust is seeking $500,000 this year, and will seek another $500,000 next year, toward buying a conservation easement on Fakkema Farm. The 377-acre property stretches from Oak Harbor’s city limits to Swan Lake. The easement would protect 300 acres. An additional $3 million toward the easement would come from the Navy and from the Natural Resources Conservation Service.
n The Land Trust seeks $30,000 toward keeping open for agricultural and open-space use two properties, totaling 56 acres, on the north side of Dugualla Lake, northeast of Oak Harbor. The land includes or is adjacent to working farmland, a freshwater lake and critically important habitat. The Navy may contribute toward the purchase because it wants to remove development rights to the area, which lies just east of a major runway at Ault Field.
n The Trust wants $165,000 toward protecting from development 30 acres of productive farmland along Lone Lake’s south shoreline. The properties are an important north-south corridor between Lone Lake and Deer Lagoon, the Trust said in its application.
Two projects are proposed on Camano Island.
n Island County’s Parks and Recreation Department seeks $85,000 to protect 4.8 acres adjacent to the Island County Parks property of Camano Ridge, on Camano Island. This is known as the Dillon property.
n The county’s noxious weed control board seeks $37,900 for suppressing weeds in 2016 and 2017 at Camano Island’s Iverson Preserve. Weeds to be controlled on the property, which was bought in 1999 with Conservation Futures Fund money, include Scotch Broom, Canadian thistle, bull thistle and poison hemlock.
Tom Cahill, a Freeland resident, in the public-comment period last night said of the Lone Lake proposal, “This is one of the most beautiful areas on the island. Conserving it will help preserve a working farm.”
In response to concerns that granting conservation easements on a property would preclude future restoration of that property, Land Trust staff was quick to assure the Citizens’ Board that it would not.
Danielle Rideout was among those presenting for the Land Trust.
The Citizens’ Board this year for the first time ranked the projects using a scoring system so arcane it puzzled both them and onlookers. They must factor in “pre-scores” from the county’s Department of Natural Resources and weigh in with their own scores as well.
Their fellow board members last night chose John Edison as chairperson and Sheilagh Byler as vice-chairperson.
The Conservation Futures Fund was created in 1991 to acquire rights and interests in open-space land, farm and agricultural land and timberland. It raises money countywide through a property-tax assessment of not more than 6.25 cents per $1,000 of assessed value.
