BY ANDY WALGAMOTT, NORTHWEST SPORTSMAN MAGAZINE
A campground at a destination rainbow trout fishery in a Northcentral Washington state forest is among several DNR recreation facilities that could be fully closed as a result of proposed cuts to land maintenance budgets, agency officials warn.
Chopaka Lake, a fly-only water tucked in a stunning portion of Okanogan County, and nearly 20 other sites around the state are listed for a range of tentative service reductions should supplemental operating budget proposals from Governor Ferguson or the state House and Senate come to pass this short legislative session.
Other campgrounds that could be fully closed include Hoh Oxbow near Forks, Lyre River west of Port Angeles, Skookum Creek near Newport and Winston Creek near Mossyrock. The other DNR recreation sites would see late openers, winter, seasonal or partial closures, service reductions, or combinations therein.
DNR says site maintenance work such as swabbing out restrooms, dealing with graffiti and other vandalism, clearing trails and storm damage, etc., has long been underfunded, and now the governor’s initial budget has proposed a cut of $750,000 on top of that.
“Washington’s world class outdoor recreation opportunities draw visitors to the state and Washingtonians to our lands. The last thing we should do is underfund them,” said Commissioner of Public Lands Dave Upthegrove in a DNR press release out this morning.
DNR explained that the sites selected for potential closures or reductions are “either operationally expensive to maintain due to volume of use, longer travel distances for limited staff, or sites that will be impacted regardless due to capacity constraints caused by storm damage,” per the release.
The agency says it has 60 field staffers for its millions of acres across the state, which they broke down to one person for every 21.6 miles of trail, 50,000 acres or 330,000 visitors.
In so publicly drawing attention to possible closures this week, DNR’s approach varies from WDFW’s, but fish and wildlife managers are facing the exact same problem – further reductions in state lands funding, with this round set to “widen our lands maintenance gap, which is already tens of millions of dollars,” according to WDFW spokeswoman Sam Montgomery.
As I reported yesterday, the Senate budget proposes to reduce WDFW’s recreation land maintenance budget by $2 million a year from 2023-25 budget levels, the House by $800,000 from that same benchmark.
“These funds are critical to stewarding the public lands that WDFW manages, and we continue to engage with legislators and our partner agencies on ways to restore funding or mitigate the impacts of these proposed funding cuts,” says Montgomery.
While in its release today DNR is pointing to very specific sites that could be closed or see reduced services, WDFW says it’s not yet clear enough to say exactly which of its wildlife areas or waters accesses might be impacted.
But Montgomery could say that sites may be dirtier due to fewer staff able to clean pit toilets or pick up trash, possible leading to closures if the situation becomes unsanitary.
She says it might also lead to less habitat restoration or enhancement work for game and listed species such as elk, mule deer, sage grouse and pygmy rabbits.
And the cuts could “significantly impact” WDFW’s ability to deal with weeds, always a concern for the agency and neighboring ranches and farms, Montgomery adds.
Washingtonians are lucky to have a pair of agencies overseeing millions upon millions of acres of state land for recreation, fish and wildlife, and timber production, and in the case of WDFW, one that’s always looking to acquire more to head off further habitat loss. Maintaining that ground is not cheap, though it is worth it across the board.
Back in the Okanogan, state budget cuts are unlikely to impact the smaller federal Bureau of Land Management campground further up Chopaka Lake, and dispersed camping would still be allowed in the surrounding Loomis State Forest, according to DNR.
The legislative session is scheduled to wrap up March 12, leaving not a lot of time to educate your lawmakers about the importance of funding lands maintenance on state ground.
