By DAN RICHMAN

drichman@whidbeynewsgroup.com

Island County Commissioners  on Wednesday changed the county’s Conservation Futures Fund Program to allow consideration of economics when contemplating conservation and to streamline the conservation review process.

“These changes were overdue,” said Commissioner Richard Hannold, who along with Commissioners Jill Johnson and Helen Price Johnson voted in favor of the changes.

“We have fine-tuned the CFF over eight months of deliberation, and we paid close attention to many of the comments we received.”

The CFF now funds “projects that jointly protect economic and conservation resources,” according to the commissioners’ 2015 goals resolution. The prior statement of its purpose omitted any reference to economics. And proposed conservation projects under the CFF now will be sent to the county planning department before they are reviewed by a nine-person Citizens’ Advisory Board (CAB). That CAB consists of the former CAB plus the former Technical Advisory Group (TAG).

Proposed projects formerly went to planning only after being considered by the CAB, a process that sometimes resulted in wasted efforts.

“We thought that was kind of dumb,” Hannold said. “Now the Planning Department will review applications first to be sure they meet county codes and land-use requirements.”

The CFF was created in September 1991 to acquire rights and interests in open-space land, farm and agricultural land and timberland. It was also intended to maintain and operate any property bought with those funds. The emphasis was on funding projects that protect conservation resources.

The fund raises money countywide through a property-tax assessment of not more than 6.25 cents per $1,000 of assessed value. It helped in the purchase of major public properties like Double Bluff and Greenbank Farm, said Marianne Edain, of advocacy group Whidbey Environmental Action Network, or WEAN, Langley.

It served as leverage to raise state and federal money to buy those properties, she said.

Admittedly, the program “is clunky and awkward,” Edain said. “It needed some review and updating. Our heartburn is that the commissioners have decided economic development should be the primary criterion.”

The commissioners have “gone beyond review and updating and are going to prioritize acquisitions based on whether they protect economic resources,” added Steve Erickson, also of WEAN. “It’s warping the program into something it’s not intended to be.”

But, Erickson conceded, “I don’t know how much practical effect having this (new language) in there will have, but I don’t like it as a precedent.” He said WEAN’s board has not discussed challenging the changes, which would require going to court.

WEAN argued in comments to the commissioners that the phrase “economic resources” is vague.

“The lack of definition and direction make it impossible for applications to ever know what the (commissioners) consider a priority,” the group argued. “Will the (commission) consider a CFF acquisition that prevents logging of forest as protection of an economic resource because of the economic value of carbon sequestration? Or will it consider it an economic negative because it removes the potential value of the trees as lumber?”

A review of 13 other Washington counties that levy a Conservation Futures tax showed none of them use any economic criteria for scoring or evaluating applications or for putting priorities on spending, WEAN wrote.

Commissioner Hannold on Monday dismissed WEAN’s concerns as exaggerated.

“The state law creating the CFF specifically states that when using the fund, you have to consider the impact it will have on development and employment opportunities, but it does that in a very verbose way,” he said.

“We’re putting some very long sentences into a couple of words. WEAN is reading too much into it.”

Pat Powell, executive director for the Whidbey Camano Land Trust, after yesterday’s meeting said she is pleased with the changes’ adoption.

“The commission did eight months of review and paid a lot of attention,” she said. “The outcome is positive.”