Federal agency wants to expand the Willapa wildlife refuge

ABERDEEN — Federal officials want to expand the Willapa National Wildlife Refuge by more than 6,800 acres, but the Pacific County Board of Commissioners is opposed over worries it will take away valuable timber land.

The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service’s preferred plan also calls for a new refuge headquarters near Long Beach and a new interpretive trail and wildlife observation deck, among other things, The Daily World of Aberdeen reported.

The refuge’s project leader Charlie Stenvall said all refuges are required by federal law to complete a conservation plan by 2012.

The draft comprehensive plan for the Willapa refuge was released in late January for public review.

The three-member board, the county’s legislative body, recently voted to oppose the plan.

“A good portion of the acreage that they are proposing to add is forest land,” Pacific County Commissioner Jon Kaino told the Daily World. “It’s not tideland, it’s not wetlands. They want to own up to the tops of ridges, which goes up into commercial forest land.”

The wildlife refuge was established in 1937 to protect waterfowl, shorebirds and other migratory birds and for conservation purposes.

It encompasses 16,000 acres including tidelands, temperate rain forest and ocean beaches.

The federal agency’s preferred option expands the refuge boundary, including 1,908 acres in the Nemah and Naselle areas; 561 acres in South Bay; and 4,334 acres in East Hills.

It would also create about 749 acres of open water, intertidal flats and salt marsh. A program also would be set up at Leadbetter point on the Long Beach peninsula to increase the population of Western snowy plovers.

Another alternative is similar to the agency’s preferred option, but the expansion would not include property in the Nemah and Naselle areas.

“We’re concerned in general about the expansion of public lands,” Kaino said. “But we’re concerned primarily with those expansions that impact commercial forestry land.”