LAND TRUST BUYS TWO FISH HABITATS
Tuesday, November 13, 2001
By KATHIE DURBIN, Columbian staff writerThe Columbia Land Trust has purchased 530 acres along the Klickitat River and an island in the Columbia River and is launching a $400,000 fund-raising campaign to complete a third purchase on a stretch of the Kalama River prized by anglers.
The Vancouver-based trust, one of the nation's fastest-growing nonprofit land trusts, said all three acquisitions will protect critical habitat for salmon and steelhead.
In Klickitat County, the trust has acquired property along the wild and scenic stretch of the Klickitat River and a tributary, Dillacort Creek. Since an undersized, fish-blocking culvert at the confluence of the two streams was replaced, spawning nests and young salmon have been discovered in Dillacort Creek.
The property, which supports pine-oak woodlands, Douglas fir forests and grasslands, also is home to western gray squirrels and Lewis woodpeckers, species designated as threatened by the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife.
A local rancher donated 200 acres to the trust, and the Washington Salmon Recovery Board provided funding to buy the remaining 380 acres.
A grant from the Oregon Watershed Enhancement Board allowed the trust to buy Lord Island, a 210-acre island in the Columbia near Rainier, Ore. The island's freshwater marshes and backwater lagoons provide resting and feeding places for young salmon and steelhead as well as adults returning to spawn.
The trust is working with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to reintroduce endangered Columbia white-tailed deer to the island.
Along the Kalama River, the trust has accepted donated conservation easements from two private landowners. The properties are about 15 miles up Kalama River Road from the town of Kalama, downstream from the gate blocking access to Weyerhaeuser Co. lands.
They're along a fabled five-mile stretch of the river known by fly fishers as "the holy waters," said Glenn Lamb, the trust's executive director.
Tim Welch of Woodland donated a 13-acre easement, and his neighbors Randy and Shelley Sweet of Kalama donated a 20-acre easement. Those easements guarantee that the riverfront property will not be further developed.
"What it means is we can use the little cottage we have there, but we will never be able to change it, nor will anyone else," Welch said.
"The protected properties already conserved cover three-quarters of a mile to one mile of frontage, in some cases on both sides," Lamb said. But the trust has an opportunity to acquire even more.
A party who lives in Connecticut and owns land along the same stretch of the Kalama, "is not in a position to donate but is in a position to sell" if the trust can come up with $425,000 by February, Lamb said. Only about $12,000 toward that goal has been raised so far.
"Small donations are helpful but we will also really need some large donations as well," Lamb said.
The land is subdivided into four buildable home sites, Lamb said, but the owner, who prefers to remain anonymous, wants to see his property conserved if the money can be raised.
The Kalama River is regionally and nationally renowned for its wild chinook salmon and steelhead runs. Despite intensive logging of its watershed, fish biologists say the river still offers some of the most intact fish habitat in Southwest Washington. It's one of nine areas the land trust has identified as high-priority areas for protection.
The trust conserves critical habitat and threatened landscapes in the Columbia Basin from the east side of the Cascades to the Columbia's mouth and in Willapa Bay.
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This page was last updated on November 13, 2001Site maintained by staff of Columbia Land Trust.
