LITTLE WHITE SALMON RIVER LAND TRUST RECIEVES $1.25 MILLION

Sunday, October 8, 2000
compiled by Columbian staff

The Vancouver-based Columbia Land Trust has received $1.25 million from the Paul G. Allen Forest Protection Foundation to buy and protect 203 acres of forest habitat and farmland in the Little White Salmon River watershed.

    The land, in western Klickitat County in the heart of the Columbia River Gorge, will be managed as the Little White Salmon Biodiversity Reserve. It is in seven parcels owned by three separate parties and will be bought in stages. Sale of the first 40-acre parcel is expected to be completed this month.

    As a condition of the grant, Pacific Power, a Portland-based utility, agreed to exchange 120 adjacent acres east of the Little White Salmon for property of equal value, preferably in the Lewis River basin. The Pacific Power land also will become part of the reserve.

    Pacific Power owns Condit Dam on the White Salmon River to the east and has agreed to remove the dam rather than pay the cost of reconstructing it to allow fish passage.

    "This project is only possible because of the generosity of the private landowners in making these properties available at very attractive prices," said Glenn Lamb, the Columbia Land Trust's executive director.

    "It demonstrates the power of private, voluntary land conservation."

    Jody Patton, executive director of the Allen Foundation, called the partnership "a tremendous opportunity" for the foundation to support private voluntary conservation in the gorge.

    The Little White Salmon flows into Drano Lake and then into the Columbia River.

    Lamb said the forested reserve will provide a critical connecting corridor of habitat for spotted owls and other species that migrate across the Columbia River.