Whatcom County Parks Growth Potential
Whatcom County is looking at creating low-impact parks, with trails and camping, for thousands of acres of state-managed land that may be transferred to county control, Parks & Recreation Director Michael McFarlane said Tuesday.
The Whatcom County Executive and state Department of Natural Resources announced Friday they agreed to work together on a plan to transfer lands in the Lake Whatcom watershed. The plan should be ready for public review by the end of the year.
At issue are more than 8,000 acres of state-managed forestland, which could be used to develop parks and trails to connect the 641 acres of parkland the county owns in the watershed.
“There’s a lot of work that needs to be done, a lot of questions that need to be answered on this,” said McFarlane, who provided an update to the County Council Tuesday night. “At this particular point in time, we don’t even know what that would look like out there.”
The county could benefit because a deal could help protect Lake Whatcom’s water quality and provide recreational opportunities for residents, McFarlane said. Meanwhile, the DNR could benefit by combining lands under its control, making them easier to manage, he said.
How much it would cost the county to manage the land isn’t yet known, officials said. The county would also lose revenue generated by timber harvesting on those lands.
Lake Whatcom, the drinking water source for about 91,000 Bellingham-area residents, is seeing deteriorating water quality, and stormwater runoff from development is at least partly to blame.
McFarlane said the county executive had to get the DNR to the table to see if it was interested in negotiations.
“Both parties need to come into this willing to negotiate and give and take,” he said.
Most council members said they supported the idea but hoped the county would study early on how it planned to manage the land. One felt it would be an exciting legacy to have this potential park area in the watershed be created.
Some residents told the council they supported the idea, which David Wallin, an environmental science professor at Western Washington University, said has been considered for more than a decade. Park land is better for the lake than land that’s logged, he said.