In this April 13, 2011, file photo, Lisa Hiam holds a Mazama pocket gopher after trapping it in the Mima Mounds of West Rocky Nature Preserve near Maytown.
South Thurston County residents who are fed up with the Mazama pocket gopher may be in line for some good news.
The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife sent a letter to the city of Tenino on April 24 laying out their goal of acquiring more than 900 acres of property in south Thurston County for the purposes of creating public recreation opportunities and mitigation of wildlife habitat development, including that of the Mazama pocket gopher.
Should the WDFW receive funding through the Washington Wildlife Recreation Program administered by the state Recreation and Conservation Office, it would represent phase one of a WDFW plan to purchase 1,700 acres of land west of Tenino. The WWRP is expected to release its decision on the grant application within the next month.
If the grant is awarded, Thurston County would then have the ability to purchase the rights to a predetermined amount of acreage on that property for gopher mitigation, as would Tenino and potentially other public entities.
“Beyond the habitat aspects, we see tremendous potential for multiple public benefits of WDFW ownership of this site,” states the letter, attributed to Regional Director Larry Phillips.
The property itself is located near the Colvin Ranch west of Tenino, a 520-acre property that has a conservation easement in place restricting development on about 90 percent of the land.
Tenino Mayor Wayne Fournier met on July 10 with Thurston County Manager Ramiro Chavez, members of the Thurston Economic Development Council and representatives from the WDFW to go over the proposal, one of about five meetings city and county officials have had regarding the potential land deal.
Chavez said at a July 17 meeting of the Thurston County Board of Commissioners that he felt the meeting was successful and that he believes the affected parties could enter into a contractual agreement related to mitigation credits. Both the county and city submitted letters to the RCO in support of the WDFW grant applications.
“They (WDFW) want to create large pockets to address the endangered species issue,” Fournier said. “A half-acre here and there is sort of meaningless. Creating that one massive bank of contiguous land makes it valuable, and there are a lot of ways you can mitigate (habitat). It’s often not just an acre-for-acre swap.”
Of the 1,700 acres being eyed by the state, about 300 are within Tenino city limits or its urban growth area. The first 930 acres WDFW hopes to buy includes about 200 acres of prairie woodlands and about 700 acres of forest land.
More than 40 percent of the total acreage would include prairie and pasture lands considered vital to the recovery of the pocket gopher, which in 2014 received threatened endangered species status and is the subject of persistent criticism by Thurston County landowners.
Those who wish to develop property where pocket gophers live must go through a long permitting process that often requires property owners to forfeit a portion of the parcel to wildlife conservation efforts and face increased building costs. One citizen, Jan Tveten of Rochester, told the Thurston County BOCC during its July 17 meeting that his property value had been cut in half for reasons he attributed to pocket gophers.
The seven-page letter informing Tenino officials of the WDFW proposal reads in part that “A 2017 survey confirmed a robust population of Mazama pocket gophers on the property. Gophers have become politically contentious because they often occupy private lands highly valued for development. Securing properties where pocket gophers can persist can alleviate some of that pressure.”
Brad Thompson, the deputy state supervisor of the Washington Fish and Wildlife Office, a branch of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, gave a presentation to the Tenino City Council on July 24 that touched on the idea that Tenino could craft its own Habitat Conservation Plan separate from the one the county recently submitted to USFWS for review — a plan that will lead to a federal Incidental Take Permit for Thurston County and would streamline the permitting process for developers.
The county requested as part of its HCP proposal to pay a large portion of the long-term mitigation costs, estimated to be north of $50 million, by using conservation futures, a program funded by property owner fees and used to protect and preserve vital habitats.
Thompson also briefed councilors on USFWS support for the WDFW plan for property acquisition and on grants the city could apply for to help fund their portion of the project
“If what they’re proposing has some chance of being approved, then it needs to go through a public comment period and process that will take about a year,” Thompson said.
In the interim, Thompson shared a new USFWS protocol with the Tenino council that no longer requires pocket gopher studies related to individual HCPs to be completed by wildlife biologists. Now it just requires someone who can follow the study, which will lower development costs and speed up the permitting process, according to Tenino City Clerk John Millard.
Millard said a primary goal of the city should the WDFW land acquisition deal materialize would be to create a sort of land bank that could address many of the issues landowners have with the current permitting process. Creating a citywide HCP is not a priority at this time, but could become more of one in the near future.
“We, the city, would negotiate with state Fish and Wildlife to have some piece of their conservation area designated for us,” Millard said. “Then we could stop doing 100 feet here, half an acre there, and put a substantial area aside for the gopher. That would help individual landowners throughout the local areas and maybe give those citizens the full, unrestricted use of their property.”
Fournier has been working with state officials to make sure the project doesn’t interfere with Tenino’s plans for future growth. He described the land itself as having a big question mark over the top of it, but that it wouldn’t benefit the city to have 300 acres of conservation land within its UGA.
The state hopes to turn a large portion of the land it purchases into recreational opportunities for hikers, hunters and other fans of outdoor activities. Fournier said he’s spoken with officials about potential agricultural uses for the land that wouldn’t be detrimental to the prairie habitats, such as cattle grazing.
“We’re all working together to make sure the opportunity here isn’t missed,” Fournier said. “Fish and Wildlife has been really easy to work with and I think we’re all excited about the proposal.”
