QUILCENE — The Northwest Watershed Institute announced it has added 51 acres of forest land near the Tarboo Wildlife Reserve to protected status with the help of the Jefferson County Land Trust, the U.S. Navy, Jefferson County and Eagle Scouts.
Twenty-one acres was conserved in 2019 and added to the wildlife preserve, and a separate 30-acre plot was conserved last week after an anonymous conservation buyer closed the sale and will act as its steward, said Peter Bahls, executive director of Northwest Watershed Institute (NWI).
Bahls and the anonymous buyer, who is from Seattle, discovered while walking the property together that both were Eagle Scouts.
“We bonded over that and were able to proceed with a high level of trust,” Bahls said in a press release issued by NWI.
The properties are on Center Road north of Quilcene but remain closed to the public due to COVID-19, Bahls said.
The conversations about the properties started in November 2018, when farmer Jean Ball contacted Bahls and the NWI about a 21-acre forest land next door that was up for sale. Ball was concerned the forest would be clear-cut and developed into house sites, Bahls said.
The phone call led to a coordinated effort by NWI and other partners, including conservation lenders, Jefferson Land Trust, the U.S. Navy, Jefferson County, donors and a conservation buyer to protect two separate properties over the next year and a half, Bahls said.
“I’m grateful for and amazed by the many people and organizations who stepped up to help protect these two forests,” he said.
“It’s a minor miracle that it all came together.”
The land is an example of native older forest with offering quality wildlife habitat, he said.
“Every acre of this mature forest is storing the rough equivalent of seven years of carbon emissions by an average American,” Bahls said.
“Forests of the Pacific Northwest can store more carbon per acre than most other types of forests in the world and can play a key role in fighting climate change.”
NWI procured low-interest loans to purchase the initial 21-acre property for $225,000. Members then led dozens of local residents on tours of the forest to encourage them to donate to help pay back the loans.
More than 100 people contributed, Bahls said.
“There are two main reasons that I was glad to contribute to this effort,” said Helen Kolff of Port Townsend. “First, I really appreciate the long-term dedication of Peter Bahls and Jude Rubin through the Northwest Watershed Institute to the preservation of our local Tarboo Watershed.
“Second, I was impressed by the way they encourage students and other community members to participate in tree-planting projects and natural history field trips in that watershed which has become such a restoration and conservation model.”
After the initial purchase, NWI worked with the Jefferson County Land Trust to protect the property using funds from the Navy and Jefferson County.
With funding from its Readiness and Environmental Protection Integration Program, the Navy purchased a restrictive easement on the forested property. The easements only remove development potential; they don’t grant any rights to the military for use of the properties.
Soon afterward, a second conservation easement that further restricts development was purchased by Jefferson Land Trust through Jefferson County’s Conservation Futures program.
The county grant program is funded by the Conservation Futures Fund. Funding was approved in 2019.
Last summer, the other property of 30 acres went up for sale. While half of the property had been logged, the land had a tributary leading into the main stem of Tarboo Creek and had patches of older forest habitat, Bahls said.
The conservation lenders were prepared to be prepaid for the 21-acre project and agreed to roll their loans over to the second project, and in November, with the completion of preserving the first piece of land, NWI worked with the land trust and purchase the 30-acre property with new loans, Bahls said.
“This was a real risk for NWI,” said Liz Hoenig Kanieski, NWI board member. “Our board of directors hoped we could find a person who would want to buy the property with protective deed restrictions on it, but we had no idea who that person might be.”
The Eagle Scout from Seattle called NWI to find land to preserve, having been inspired by attending a reading of the book “Saving Tarboo Creek,” written by Tarboo Ridge residents Scott and Susan Freeman, which describes the NWI’s watershed project.
Last week, despite the COVID-19 pandemic, NWI worked with the Land Trust and Navy to put a restrictive easement on the 30-acre property, which was then sold to the conservation buyer, Bahls said.
The new owner’s plan is to allow the logged section to grow back and recover the older forest through selective thinning and to store carbon, Bahls said.
