[wamtngal]

From 9/30, Daily Record: CLE ELUM — A dozen wild turkeys, seemingly oblivious to cattle grazing nearby, pecked away at the ground in a pasture just down the road and across the street from Violet Burke’s home in the Teanaway late Sunday afternoon. A pickup, its bed piled high with camping gear and bicycles, rattled down the Teanaway Road. Farther on, two women on horseback made their way down a trail on a hillside above the Teanaway River. For 70 of her 83 years, the Teanaway has been Burke’s home — and her family’s playground — a place to hunt, hike, camp and fish. But Burke knows her beloved Teanaway may be headed for change. The American Forest Land Co. LLC, which manages 46,000 acres in the area for American Forest Resources, the company which owns the land, has requested a planning process to guide long-term land use for the area. The county has embarked on an 18-month effort to develop a plan that would shape the future development of the area. (American Forest Resources was formerly known as U.S. Timberland, the company that bought the land from Boise Cascade in 1999.) Full article here.

[Slugman]

They don't say where the land is exactly.

[treeswarper]

Am I missing something here? What is the problem with a long range planning plan? Is it going into a resort? Will timber be harvested? Or perhaps used for carbon credits? A very poorly written article for a newspaper.

[Jeff Chapman]

http://www.co.kittitas.wa.us/cds/teanaway-meetings.asp This is a pretty important deal to recreation interests in the Middle Fork on the west side of the planning area were there is DNR lands checkerboarded with American Forest Land Co land (vicinity of Indian Camp Campground). It also affects the access in the North Fork below 29 Pines, which is the access to Esmeralda. There was a public meeting yesterday and there will be an Open House on the 21st. I haven't received any feedback yet from folks I know were going to attend.

[HunterConservationist]

Who cares. The good part of the Teanaway valley is already messed up. Used to be nice huge pastures, now a bunch of ranchettes. Might as well build some faux craftsman village like "Sunk-a-dia" in nearby Cle Elum.

[wamtngal]

Who cares? Maybe you should care, HC, you are a recreationist, right? We're talking about the upper valley of the Teanaway, btw, not the lower valley. And as Jeff mentioned, it affects some pretty important access in the North Fork area... Is that not a good reason to care or become involved? treeswarper - nothing wrong with a long-range planning process...but I've also heard it mentioned that the same person who was involved with Suncadia is involved in this, which makes me wonder what the intentions are for the area... slugman - there's a map here, but nothing is really labeled (ie roads), but if you know the area, you can sort of figure out what is what.

[treeswarper]

This might be the future. Look at it from a landowner point of view. I hear this from the smaller timber land owners. I joined an organization that promotes the working together of small, family type timberland owners. They have taken care of their land. It has been an investment. But, timber is a LONG TERM investment. OK, you've taken care, paid to have precommercial thinning done. Protected it from fire, maintained your roads, picked up garbage dumped by bad people. Meanwhile, the state becomes urbanized. People move here from elsewhere and are living in cities. They have no connection to your land, other than they like to play in that area, or like the way it looks. The legislature, because most of the voters are of the urban ilk, passes laws to protect various things, creeks must be buffered so many feet--buffering meaning no cutting. There goes a bit of your income. An eagle nest is discovered, subtract more, well, there's a spotted owl in the area, more is subtracted. Meanwhile, the rules on wetland protection are rumored to change to even more buffering. Lumber mills in your area have gone under, either because of the market--recently, or because federal timberland was locked up--earlier. You have hoped to get some income from this property. What do you do when half of it has been deemed to be off limits. And, we all know the market is at a low. But pretend the market is good. There is another option, but that market is tanked too, and the land thrown out from timber harvest can't be counted for the program. That would be selling carbon credits for your standing timber. This is a major topic now amongst the timber owners. What do you do when you have no control over the future of your timber investment? Hmmm, might as well develop it, and go somewhere else. Most of the family woods owners cringe at this, but it may be the only option available. Here's another thing, what happens when our lumber comes from overseas. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/newsnight/8221164.stm I'm sorry, I wasn't too alert this morning to see the link.

[33teeth]

[polecatjoe]

As a member of a timberland owning family partnership, I can tell you that this down market has made it completely unfeasible to log our parcel. We have 31 acres in good timber, Doug fir and hemlock, but with the creek buffers Treeswarper mentioned eating up part of it we would barely break even. Right now we are hoping (probably irrationally) for improvement in the timber markets, but in the meantime, our investment just sits. What do the rest of you think private timber owners should do with their land- just sit on it as it gradually becomes less valuable? If there was a way we could develop our parcel and turn a profit, we would jump on it, but in our case it is impossible. Just because this is a much larger outfit doesn't make the issues any different. I think any of you in a similar position would do the same.

[polecatjoe]

[33teeth]

[polecatjoe]

Who said anything about changing the rules?

[509]

[Jeff Chapman]

I am a big fan of private timberlands as much of the open space in front-country Western Washington that provides year around recreational opportunities for non-motorized users is on these lands. Some owners have already closed their lands to the public (for liability concerns), and this is a great loss to recreational users. Others are debating closing their lands, and this is of concern to many of us. One problem is that we offer weak protections to landowners under the existing Recreation Immunity Statute, and this must change - which is one of the proposals of the DNR Sustainable Recreation Work Group (a separate thread). The frustrations leading to timberland owners selling off or developing their properties are due to a number of reasons, often quite legitimate. When they do sell their properties, particulary with those that have kept their lands open to the public, we recreationalists loose. For example, Weyerhaeuser has their Merrill Lake parcel up for sale south of Mt St Helens. This parcel includes the spectacular Kalama Falls, and Weyerhaeuser has always allowed the public to hike out or ride to the falls. Who knows what the new owners will allow. Another example is that Pope Resources, the major land owner in Kitsap and Jefferson Counties, is addressing their massive land holdings on the Kitsap. They feel these holdings aren't profitable for timber as much as developing so they tentatively are considering chunking them in 20 acre tracts and selling them off (and of course, Kitsap now being suburban/urban, they too get tired of pressure from the new crop of anti-resource extraction residents). There are a lot of trails on these properties, and Pope has always been supportive of non-motorized public access on their lands. So they have been working to come up with a different option - cluster housing near Port Gamble with transferring development rights (TDRs), enhancing the existing trail system including a cross-county trail from the Bainbridge Ferry to the Hood Canal Bridge (and on to the Olympic Discovery Trail at Discovery Bay), and continuing with some less profitable selective cutting and small harvesting. They are of course coming up against Growth Management and bureaucracy, so it is iffy if they will succeed. One deterrent to development is that timberland greater than five acres is often in a special property tax program (either Open Space Timber of Classified/Designated Timber depending upon parcel size). For example, if you have 40 acres of land worth $10,000 an acre (perhaps development value), you could pay (at $10/1000) $4,000 a year in property tax. In timber, the assessment is figured at a calculated rate somewhat tied to productivity. It could be as low as 0 an acre for wet areas - but typically may be up to $100 an acre. This means you would pay $40/year in taxes on that 40 acres. However, if you pull your property out of timberland, you pay a compensating tax penalty, which for a 40 acre parcel, is up to 10 years worth of past taxes. In other words you could end up paying a near $40,000 bill. That may not be a lot when measured against development proceeds, but it makes folks think twice.

[33teeth]