PORT ANGELES — The committee of commissioners representing five encumbered counties, including Clallam and Jefferson, have arrived at a recommendation for how timber revenue from replacement lands should be distributed between the counties.
The ratio agreed upon by the committee, known as the impact share method, will distribute funds based on how many encumbered acres each county has when compared to the total number of acres encumbered between the five counties.
The Washington State Association of Counties (WSAC) will vote on the recommendation at its Feb. 5 meeting, Clallam County Commissioner Mark Ozias said.
Encumbered counties are those which have substantial portions of their state trust land set aside for protection of endangered species such as marbled murrelets and northern spotted owls.
Due to federal polices and other obligations, it is estimated that at least 40 percent of the state’s approximately 600,000 acres of forestland are encumbered, or no longer available for harvest.
Between these five encumbered counties, which also includes Wahkiakum, Pacific and Skamania, about 54,944 acres have been set aside.
About 22,673 of those acres are in Clallam County, while about 335 acres are in Jefferson County.
To help offset the revenue losses these counties are experiencing, the state allocated funds in 2022, 2023 and 2024 to help purchase replacement timberland. Whether more funding will be allocated in the upcoming Legislative session is up in the air, Clallam County Commissioner Randy Johnson said.
Some of that land — starting with more than 8,000 acres purchased in Wahkiakum County — will be shared timberland where the revenue will be split between the five different counties.
How that revenue will be split, however, took more than six months of discussion and consideration of multiple ratios, Johnson said.
“It ranged through a multitude of different options,” he said.
Under the agreed-upon equation, Clallam would receive a little more than 41 percent of the timber revenue (22,673 acres divided by 54,944 acres) while Jefferson would receive less than 1 percent of the revenue.
For a timber sale that generates about $1 million in revenue, Clallam would receive almost $413,000 while Jefferson would get about $6,000.
Johnson said the trees on the shared timberland have a pretty large distribution of ages, so some acres might be harvested relatively quickly when compared to other replacement purchases.
The committee of commissioners also agreed that, as the host county, $2.1 million of the state’s previous allocations would be used to purchase replacement forestland specifically for Wahkiakum County.
If the impact share method is approved by WSAC, Johnson said the next step would be a discussion between the Clallam commissioners regarding how the money will be split between Clallam’s junior taxing districts such as fire districts and hospital districts.
One possibility is to look at how much encumbered timberland is in each of the junior taxing districts and use a ratio similar to the impact share method.
“That’s one way to do it,” Johnson said. “There might be other ways.”
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Reporter Emma Maple can be reached by email at emma.maple@peninsuladailynews.com.
