A trio of conifers reach into the sky in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest.
A federal program that has funded everything from city parks in Lewis County to projects at Mount Rainier is one step closer to renewal after it passed the U.S. Senate Tuesday as part of a massive public lands package.
The Land and Water Conservation Fund, which expired last September, has put more than $16 billion — $675 million of that in Washington — into conservation projects since its inception more than 50 years ago. The fund takes royalties from oil and gas drilling and sets money aside for projects ranging from local baseball fields to national parks.
“Today is a huge step forward,” said Amy Lindholm, who coordinates the LWCF Coalition, an advocacy group that supports the fund. “Hopefully, once the public lands package goes through the House and is signed into law, that will be a huge victory for conservation.”
LWCF has had plenty of impact in Lewis County. It helped fund renovations to the Gail and Carolyn Shaw Aquatic Center in Chehalis, as well as acquisition of Klickitat Prairie Park and Mayfield Lake Park in East Lewis County. It’s boosted Cowlitz River access projects, work at Ike Kinswa State Park and Mineral Lake, and the Winston Creek Campground.
“Support from the Land and Water Conservation Fund is an important tool for small communities like ours to achieve park improvement goals,” Chehalis recreation manager Lilly Wall said last summer, when the fund was on the verge of expiring. “These projects would most likely not happen without this type of support.
It’s also been a key factor for the region’s expansive sections of federal land. LWCF funds paid for an expansion of the northwest boundary of Mount Rainier National Park in 2010, allowing the agency to re-route a section of road that had been washing out and improve access to the park. The Fund also contributed to a project that preserved more than 20,000 acres of private forestland near Mount St. Helens, saving the habitat from development and retaining its status as a working forest for timber production.
LWCF has put more than $15 million into land purchases along the Pacific Crest Trail, totaling 64 acquisitions that have protected 21,000 acres of land. Statewide, the fund has supported more than 600 projects in Washington.
Those wide-ranging projects are why Sen. Maria Cantwell was among the most vocal advocates for the Fund’s reauthorization.
“The Land and Water Conservation Fund has been a pre-eminent program for access to public lands,”Cantwell said in a release. “It gives local communities the tools and resources to manage public lands, to give more access to the American people, to do the things that will help us grow jobs and preserve against a very challenging and threatening climate.”
Cantwell helped shepherd LWCF through the Senate as part of a large public lands bill that contained more than 100 provisions. The bill will protect 1.3 million acres as wilderness, expand several national parks, designate new national monuments and withdraw some mining claims, including North Cascades National Park. It also provides more funding for volcano early warning and monitoring, while boosting technology for wildfire management.
Every year, $900 million is set aside from drilling revenue for LWCF projects, though Congress has historically appropriated more than half of that money elsewhere. Advocates hope that later efforts will bring full funding to the program, but celebrate the Senate-passed bill that renews it in perpetuity. The bill is expected to pass the House, thanks to work in the previous Congress to build consensus on the Fund.
Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler, R-Battle Ground, has in the past complained of LWCF projects that faced local opposition, but she said the renewal provision contains reforms that are worth supporting.
“The LWCF provision of the Senate bill includes some positive changes that will help steer LWCF away from controversial projects that block forest management activities and recreational access for the public,” Herrera Beutler spokeswoman Angeline Riesterer said in a statement. “While she believes the LWCF provision moves the program in a positive direction, it’s part of a larger bill and she’ll continue studying the other portions before taking a position on the full package.”
One of the changes in the reauthorization package designates at least 40 percent of the LWCF spending for federal purposes, while holding another 40 percent to help states. The provision was added to earn support from LWCF skeptics — largely Republicans — who felt it gave the federal government precedent over states.
“It’s a huge relief,” said Katherine Hollis, conservation and advocacy director for The Mountaineers, the 13,000-member recreation and conservation club based in Seattle. “To be in this state of limbo on a program that’s such a no-brainer — it’s so bipartisan, and it’s positively impacted almost every single county in the U.S.”
Reauthorizing the Fund with no expiration date was important, Lindholm said, because even the lapse that’s been ongoing since January may prove a huge setback to land transactions that can take a long time to develop.
“The chilling effect has really been our greatest concern,” she said. “You’re trying to work with landowners in various communities where you’re bringing a lot of stakeholders to the table. These deals are complicated and take a long time under the best of circumstances. We’re concerned that this temporary expiration has put a dent in the future pipeline.”
If the House and President Donald Trump sign off on the public lands package as expected, backers say it will go a long way toward providing long-term stability and ensuring future LWCF projects continue to be funded.
“Hopefully we put an end to that (uncertainty) starting today in the Senate,” Lindholm said.
