The Times - Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley

DAYTON – Last week the Washington State Department of Natural Resources presented to several county residents at a public hearing its plan to sell 640 acres of land it owns in Columbia County to the Bonneville Power Administration in exchange for land deemed of equal value that BPA owns in King County.

All three county residents in attendance were unhappy with DNR. Merle Jackson, a county commissioner and land owner in the rural northern part of the county where this land exchange is planned, said the transaction was not negotiated on a “level playing field.”

Raymond DeRuwe, who leases the Jackson Farm, agreed and said, “I have a point to drive home, which is that private land owners don’t have the same rights as the state when they’re negotiating land deals. The same rules should apply whether you’re state or private.”

Jackson and DeRuwe are steamed about the DNR-BPA land swap primarily because Jackson and his family have leased those 640 acres north of Starbuck near the Snake River to graze livestock for more than 70 years; they’ve owned the land on two sides of the parcel for more than a century. Gerald Magill, the third resident at the hearing, is manager of the Ferrell and Luvads property, which is situated on the other two sides of DNR’s lot.

BPA is buying the land because it wants to install a transmission line through the property as part of the Central Ferry-Lower Monumental project. One transmission line, decades old, already exists across parcel. DNR has deemed that the second transmission line will “encumber” the property to such an extent that it will no longer be of value to the agency, which holds the land in a Common School Trust. In addition, the parcel is “land locked,” being surrounded by private land with no public access.

Rather than further reduce the value of this “under-productive” land, DNR wants to swap with BPA for approximately 80 acres of forested land in the Cedar River Watershed near Seattle. BPA has no interest in owning the land in Columbia County but merely wants to install the transmission line there; the agency plans to re-sell the land once acquired from DNR, according to Mari Rosales, who represented BPA at the public hearing last week.

“Why wasn’t I allowed to buy that land?” Jackson questioned. None of the agency representatives had an answer. “The cows don’t care about the power lines. I pay the lease on that land every year… Chasing rainbows is not always what it’s cracked up to be. A good, steady income is something you can bank on.”

Common School Trust lands were granted at statehood by the federal government. Seventy-one percent of income generated by production on these and other DNR trust lands goes to benefit schools ($6 billion has been earned for trust beneficiaries since 1970); 29 percent is used by DNR to put back into the land.

Public Hearing:

Written testimony on this proposed land exchange will be accepted until 5 p.m. on May 29. Send to: Department of Natural Resources, Attn: Land Exchange No. 86-088638, 111 WA Street S.E., Olympia, WA 98504-7014 or email comments to exchanges@dnr.wa.gov.