PORT ANGELES — Clallam County Commissioners are being asked to consider the Doc Holliday parcel for a replacement timber sale.
The Center for Responsible Forestry presented to the commissioners on Monday during their work session. The center asked the commissioners to nominate the six-unit Doc Holliday parcel for the state Department of Natural Resources’ replacement timber sale.
The commissioners did not take action on the item, saying they wanted to hear from DNR, the logging industry and from the county’s revenue advisory committee.
Sites nominated
The way the program works is that counties nominate sites to be put into conservation, DNR assesses the sites for their timber value and then replacement land of similar value is bought and used for logging, Center for Responsible Forestry Policy Advisor Brel Froebe explained.
In 2023, Clallam County nominated the Shore Thing and Power Plant sites for the program.
“One thing that came up in 2023, and we’ve heard a number of counties speak about is, while they may want to see lands put into conservation, it could take a number of years for those replacement lands to be harvested,” Froebe said. “This year’s proviso has a new proponent to it where counties can get cash up front rather than having to wait for harvest to occur on the replacement lands.”
The Washington State Association of Counties (WSAC), DNR and numerous conservation organizations were successful in securing $23 million in the 2025-27 budget biennium from the Natural Climate Solutions account created by the Climate Commitment Act, according to the agenda memo.
DNR has estimated most of the forests which will be nominated are worth between $20,000 and $25,000, Froebe said. The department has to spend $12,000 per acre to purchase conservation lands, he said.
The way the cash upfront provision works would be that anything above the $12,000 of the forest’s value can be paid out to the county before DNR purchases the replacement land, he said.
The Doc Holliday parcel is 46.4 acres of State Forest Board Transfer trust land, according to Froebe’s presentation. At $25,000 per acre, the replacement value could be as high as $1.16 million. About $556,800 would be used to purchase replacement acres while $603,200 would be available for the county to receive upfront.
“A really important part of this process is the appraisal process,” Froebe said. “DNR is moving forward with that appraisal process more quickly than it has in the past. They’re being appraised as if they were logged by a private company, also taking into account the land value.”
The Doc Holliday parcel would be a really great nominee for the program, he said. The parcel is a structurally complex forest with large trees, canopy diversity, understory diversity and ecosystem legacies.
“This parcel is unique in that part of it has already been logged,” Froebe said.
Bill Bryant, who grew up on the Olympic Peninsula and has family members in the logging industry, spoke to the commissioners against the sale of the parcel for logging, saying it is the first time he’s ever testified against a timber sale.
“This is the kind of forest I grew up in,” Bryant said. “It’s old trees, it’s mixed species, it has lots of really old, large spruce trees. All across the Peninsula, these forests are disappearing, and we have an opportunity to save this forest.”
The county commissioners and junior taxing districts in the county, which use the funds from timber sales in their budgets, have a fiduciary responsibility to make sure people in the county are getting a fair return on these trust lands, Bryant said.
This replacement timber sale program could possibly bring in more money for junior taxing districts than logging the land would bring in, Bryant said, adding that using this program could lead to a future where timber sales are not constantly coming up in courts because the old growth forest trust lands will be conserved while other land will be logged.
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Reporter Emily Hanson can be reached at emily.hanson@peninsuladailynews.com.
