Associated Press
MOUNT VERNON — Up to 900 acres of farmland and riverbank along the Skagit River are being purchased by conservation groups to protect salmon habitat.
The Nature Conservancy of Washington and the Skagit Land Trust are buying the land for $1.1 million from Kimberly-Clark Corp.
The paper company was going to plant the farmland with poplar trees for pulp. Instead, the land will remain as pasture and will allow the Skagit to meander in its flood plain, providing habitat for chinook and coho salmon. The area also is home to bear, deer, elk, river otter, beaver, bald eagles, waterfowl and songbirds.
Most of the property is located within the floodplain of the Skagit River east of Sedro-Woolley. The land being protected is in five parcels, including 5.3 miles of freshwater shoreline, 389 acres of forest, 44.5 acres of wetlands and 235 acres of farmland.
"This makes me ecstatic. It’s nice to know people care enough to make this happen," said Andrea Xaver, president of the Skagit Land Trust, a local group that already has protected about 2,875 acres in Skagit County.
"Skagit County is in a crunch between Vancouver, B.C., and Seattle. People come here for the beauty, and I don’t blame them. But the more people come here, the more the land goes away. We are about saving the last, best places."
The Nature Conservancy provided a bridge loan of $800,000 to buy the land. The remaining $311,000 came directly from the Skagit Land Trust.
The conservancy also will lobby Congress for federal Land and Water Conservation Fund money so the Forest Service can buy parts of the property next to the river. The agency would manage the land as part of the national Wild and Scenic Rivers system.
In the past 25 years, the conservancy has protected about 10 miles along the Upper Skagit.
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