New Optimism about Eglon Forest Protection
The Eglon Forest, ~640 acres of Washington Department of Natural Resources (DNR) timber lands north of Kingston, has been poised to become a county park since 2016. In January 2021, Stillwaters Environmental Center’s monthly column in the Kitsap Community News outlined some of the complexities involved in protecting these state-owned school and university trust lands, despite both DNR’s and Kitsap County’s interest in doing so. However, recent updates to DNR’s Trust Land Transfer (TLT) program may finally allow this vision to become a reality.
(Right: Parcel map showing boundaries of the original Eglon Forest TLT and the new one before the legislature in 2023 that includes an additional 66 acres on Parcells Rd.)
DNR manages trust lands to provide revenue for schools, colleges, and other state-funded services. Unlike private timber companies who can arrange to sell their property as they wish, (including to local governments and non-profits), public lands managed by the DNR must be sold at public auction according to our state constitution. The TLT program, initiated in 1989, provided an alternative to selling DNR lands to the highest bidder, allowing them to be conserved for other public benefits like conservation and recreation, via their ‘transfer’ to other public agencies like County Parks. DNR could then use funds from the transfer to purchase new properties to generate more revenue for the state.
For several years, legislative enthusiasm for the TLT program had been decreasing with decreasing revenues from state trust lands when, in 2018, the DNR conducted a performance assessment of state trust lands’ management. Based on the resulting report in 2021, the legislature directed the DNR to form a work group of trust beneficiaries and stakeholders to revise the TLT program. In 2022, the work group established new criteria to prioritize trust lands for transfer, including community involvement and support, ecological values, economic values, public benefits, and tribal support, and tested them in a pilot project to generate a ranked list of proposed TLT parcels from across the state.
The Eglon Forest ranked number one, and the list was approved by the Board of Natural Resources in September of 2022. The proposed 707-acre Eglon Forest parcel includes a “bonus” ~66-acre parcel on Parcells Road which has large wetlands that feeds both Carpenter and Grovers Creeks. This high ranking is attributable to the long history of community support, including the Kingston Parks, Trails, and Open Space Committee’s long advocacy for public access to the forest’s trails and the Kitsap Environmental Coalition’s (KEC) more recent advocacy for conservation, which has included multiple tours of the forest in 2022 for state and county policymakers, community members, tribal representatives, environmental organizations, and county staff.
(Right/above: Parks' Director Alex Wisniewski, County Commissioner Rob Gelder and State Senator Christine Rolfes on an Eglon Forest tour organized by Kitsap Environmental Coalition in June. Photo credit: Kurt Smith.)
Protecting these forest parcels will provide more than trails. Millions of dollars have been and are being spent in Kitsap County on culvert removals to promote salmon recovery and honor treaties with local tribes. These projects start at creek mouths, where creeks meet the Sound, restoring natural stream and tidal flows to improve adult salmon and sea-going trout access to spawning habitat and juvenile salmon (particularly chinook) access to estuary habitats for resting and feeding during their journey to the Pacific Ocean. But ultimately, the success of such recovery efforts also depends on the health of the watershed upstream, including wetlands that provide summer flows by storing winter rains, and forests that shade and nourish these wetlands, streams, and their inhabitants.
Eglon Forest protection is particularly important to one such restoration effort already underway. Since 2020, Mid-Sound Fisheries Enhancement Group has been working to restore historic estuary habitat on two private properties at Rose Point near Eglon (click here for more information). Once estuary restoration is complete, the creek flowing through the properties will become part of the North Kitsap chapter of the Puget Sound Anglers’ Legacy Project, which involves installing egg boxes to promote the recovery of a chum salmon run in the creek. Critical to the success of both these projects is the protection of the creek’s headwaters - a wetlands complex at the northern end of the Eglon Forest. The DNR proposed a timber sale around this wetland in 2020, but public outcry over logging some of the oldest trees in the forest succeeded in delaying the proposed sale for 10 years, during which a revitalized TLT program could be developed and, hopefully, result in the transfer the forest to Kitsap County.
(Left: Participants in an Eglon Forest tour in June organized by the Kitsap Environmental Coalition. Photo credit: Kurt Smith)
The legislature must still approve funding for the new TLT before any state trust lands can be transferred. The DNR has already submitted their Capital Budget Request for the 2023-2025 biennium, listing ‘Revitalizing Trust Land Transfers’ as their top program priority. Contact your legislators and tell them to support this program and watch KEC’s website (https://kitsapenvironmentalcoalition.org) for more information about additional legislators to contact during the 2023 legislative session.
2022 was a banner year for North Kitsap forests. Nonprofits, tribes and local government worked together to secure 756 acres of timber rights in Port Gamble Forest Heritage Park and add 100 acres to the Hansville Greenway. Let’s continue this positive trend in 2023.
Eglon Forest protection is particularly important to one such restoration effort already underway. Since 2020, Mid-Sound Fisheries Enhancement Group has been working to restore historic estuary habitat on two private properties at Rose Point near Eglon (click here for more information). Once estuary restoration is complete, the creek flowing through the properties will become part of the North Kitsap chapter of the Puget Sound Anglers’ Legacy Project, which involves installing egg boxes to promote the recovery of a chum salmon run in the creek. Critical to the success of both these projects is the protection of the creek’s headwaters - a wetlands complex at the northern end of the Eglon Forest. The DNR proposed a timber sale around this wetland in 2020, but public outcry over logging some of the oldest trees in the forest succeeded in delaying the proposed sale for 10 years, during which a revitalized TLT program could be developed and, hopefully, result in the transfer the forest to Kitsap County.
(Left: Participants in an Eglon Forest tour in June organized by the Kitsap Environmental Coalition. Photo credit: Kurt Smith)
The legislature must still approve funding for the new TLT before any state trust lands can be transferred. The DNR has already submitted their Capital Budget Request for the 2023-2025 biennium, listing ‘Revitalizing Trust Land Transfers’ as their top program priority. Contact your legislators and tell them to support this program and watch KEC’s website (https://kitsapenvironmentalcoalition.org) for more information about additional legislators to contact during the 2023 legislative session.
2022 was a banner year for North Kitsap forests. Nonprofits, tribes and local government worked together to secure 756 acres of timber rights in Port Gamble Forest Heritage Park and add 100 acres to the Hansville Greenway. Let’s continue this positive trend in 2023.
