EVERETT — The city of Everett now has a 50-year agreement in place to harvest timber on land it owns around Lake Chaplain.
Lake Chaplain is one of the city’s sources of drinking water, but the heavily wooded area could also be home to northern spotted owls and marbled murrelets, two bird species listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act.
The agreement with state and federal regulators will allow the city to cut trees on part of the 3,729-acre tract in exchange for protecting the remainder of the land for the next 50 years.
The agreement states that the city and the state Department of Natural Resources will cooperatively work to enhance habitat for the spotted owl and marbled murrelet. The agreement protects about 1,066 acres in the area.
The protections correspond to those parts that are most likely to support nesting or foraging for the birds, as well as wetlands, steep slopes and other sensitive areas.
The City Council passed the agreement Dec. 16 with a unanimous vote and without comment.
Because the measure was an agreement between the city and regulators, and doesn’t change the city code, it didn’t have to go through the usual public process that ordinances in the city do, Everett Communications Director Meghan Pembroke said.
The city has occasionally harvested timber in the area when economic conditions were favorable. Those harvests have usually been smaller, about 20 acres at a time, said Julie Sklare, a senior environmental specialist for the city.
The city has operated under a variety of shorter-term agreements with other federal and state agencies in the past, she said.
The final agreement approved by the City Council did not have any major changes from an earlier version put out for public comment by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Sklare said.
When and how much timber to cut in the future would be determined by economic factors, Sklare said.
“It is probably based on the timber market and the need for revenue,” she said.
Harvesting activity could also include commercial thinning, which is also done to enhance habitat by allowing understory growth and opening up flyways for birds, Sklare said.
The city submitted the agreement to the Department of Natural Resources in July.
Jay Guthrie, the department’s assistant manager for its Northwest Region, approved the agreement in September, writing that forest practices law allows for significantly more harvest and less habitat than what Everett proposed.
“It is the Department’s finding that the plans clearly provide for both immediate and ongoing benefit to both the spotted owl and marbled murrelet, thereby supporting the recovery efforts of both species,” Guthrie wrote.
The overall plan is structured as a safe harbor agreement. That means that the city will be able to harvest timber on the land, and won’t be penalized if logging outside the protected area harms murrelet or owl populations.
The city is likewise not obligated to conduct a survey prior to logging in the allowed area, although proposed timber harvests must be submitted to the state Forest Practices Board.
The Snohomish County Public Utility District, which operates the Jackson Hydroelectric Project on Spada Lake, has surveyed the area and found marbled murrelets on U.S. Forest Service land close to the city’s tract.
That implied that the birds were likely nesting in the area, possibly in the city’s tract.
The likeliest foraging and nesting spots were included in the protected acreage, Sklare said.
No signs of spotted owls were detected in the area.
Safe harbor agreements are relatively new in forest management in Washington state. Port Blakely Tree Farms signed the first such agreement in 2009, covering about 45,000 acres it owns in Lewis County. Everett is the first municipality to sign one.
Chris Winters: 425-374-4165; cwinters@heraldnet.com. Twitter: @Chris_At_Herald.
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