TOLMIE STATE PARK — A cloudy, cool day in August isn’t beach weather, but that didn’t stop a steady stream of visitors to this public beach on Puget Sound near Lacey.
One couple grilled chicken, children caught tiny crabs as the falling tide exposed crannies in the rocks, and George Barner of Olympia just drank in the sights, sounds and smells of nature.
“It’s important to come out and connect with nature,” said Barner, a Port of Olympia commissioner. “To see the tide come in and out and see the kids look for little critters on the beach, it renews your spirit, and it’s critically important to connect with Puget Sound.
“I’ve often felt it was a mistake when the state allowed people to buy Puget Sound shoreline and put up houses.”
Most of Puget Sound’s estimated 2,400 miles of beach and waterfront is walled off to the public.
According to the Trust for Public Land — a conservation group that buys private land at fair-market prices, then donates it to public agencies — about 73 percent of Puget Sound waterfront is privately owned. “Theoretically, 18 percent of the shoreline is open to public access, but if you’re trying to get on it with your own two feet — without a boat — that drops to 11 percent,” said Karen Macdonald, Seattle-based marketing director for the Trust for Public Land.
It’s difficult for people to love — or want to save — something that isn’t easy to reach or touch, and increasing public access to Puget Sound’s beaches is essential to save the Sound, Macdonald said.
The state sold Puget Sound shoreline from 1890 through 1971 — when the state Legislature stopped sales — and that is why such a small part of the shoreline is open to the public.
The Washington State Parks department owns 40 miles of Puget Sound shoreline spread out over more than 30 parks and islands scattered from South Sound north to the San Juan Islands.
That sounds like a lot of shoreline, but most state parks have fairly small stretches of beach.
In South Sound, Tolmie State Park has 1,800 feet of shoreline. Joemma Beach State Park in Pierce County has 3,000 feet. Potlatch State Park on Hood Canal has 9,570 feet.
The state Department of Natural Resources owns and manages vast tidelands, which is land that is covered by salt water at least part of the time.
But most of the beaches that lead to those tidelands are privately owned, said Jane Chavey, Natural Resources spokesman.
Public agencies — including the state, counties and cities — started trying to buy back Puget Sound shoreline in the 1980s, but progress has been slow.
Why?
Puget Sound shoreline is some of the most valuable land in Washington.
The city of Olympia bought 17 acres of land with 3,685 feet of shoreline on the west side of Budd Inlet in 2006. The city paid $5 million.
Buying Puget Sound shoreline for a new park became possible in 2004, when Olympia voters approved a measure that increased utility taxes to pay for parks expansion.
“We are trying to buy shoreline before it is too late,” said Linda Oestreich, director of Olympia Parks, Arts and Recreation. “We’re grateful that city voters increased their own taxes to allow us to buy critical pieces of property; it would be a whole different story if voters hadn’t approved that measure.”
The city is using more parks funds, state grants and private money from local Rotary clubs to spend an additional $1.79 million in the first phase to clean hazardous waste from the former lumber mill site and make the land a park. Work could start late this year or in 2009.
The park will have picnic sites, plantings, shoreline and a kayak launch when the first phase is over.
“We know that people are anxious to use the property,” Oestreich said.
Thurston County recently bought 350 feet of waterfront on Budd Inlet off of Cooper Point Road for $800,000, said Chuck Groth, county parks operations manager.
The new shoreline is not yet open to the public because the county hasn’t budgeted the money to develop it into a park, Groth said.
Thurston County hopes to have $1 million to start the park by 2014, Groth said.
That’s a long time to wait, but at least the county has the shoreline and it eventually will become a park, Groth said.
“There is not much Puget Sound shoreline available to us, and the cost is very, very high,” Groth said. “Owners often want more than we can pay.”
Cities, counties and the state have depended for years on land donations to get costly Puget Sound shoreline for public use.
State Parks landed a whopper of a donation when a family donated the new Cama Beach State Park — 433 acres — with buildings and beach, said Sandy Mealing, Parks spokeswoman.
Cama Beach State Park, a former fishing resort on the southwest part of Camano Island, opened to the public this summer.
“It was a significant donation,” Mealing said.
But what happens when governments don’t have the millions of dollars to buy available land?
Private land-conservation groups, such as the Trust For Public Land, People for Puget Sound and The Nature Conservancy, are big players in the rush to get more public access to Puget Sound’s shoreline.
The groups have raised and spent millions of dollars.
In some cases, such as The Nature Conservancy’s, the group keeps the land and allows public access.
In other cases, such as with the Trust for Public Land, the group gives the land to a public agency to manage.
The Trust For Public Land hopes to get 10 new parks or natural areas on Puget Sound by 2009, Macdonald said.
Four of the properties, including 34.5 acres of land with Puget Sound shoreline on Pilot Point in Kitsap County, already are in the bag, Macdonald said.
Three other properties are in negotiations.
The Trust for Public Land raises money and finds landowners who are willing to sell for a fair market price, Macdonald said.
“Very few people can afford to give shoreline land away,” Macdonald said.
The Kitsap County owners bought the land years ago as their retirement investment, but they couldn’t bear seeing houses sprout on the land.
The couple sold the land for about $2 million to the Trust for Public Land.
“They could have probably gotten a ton more money, but they’re happy and we’re happy,” Macdonald said.
Washington State Parks office is negotiating to buy about three miles of Puget Sound shoreline — one parcel in South Sound and one in North Sound, Mealing said.
Much of the money will come from grants, Mealing said.
Details on the land are not available, because negotiations are ongoing, but deals could close in 2009, Mealing said.
“It’s a good amount of money,” Mealing said, “into the millions.”
The price of increasing public shoreline on Puget Sound is high, but getting people on the beach — touching the water, seeing the marine life and falling in love with Washington’s biggest natural treasure — is the only way to make sure the Sound survives, Barner said.
Millions of people live near Puget Sound — and more are on the way — but there aren’t enough places for people to see why the Sound is so special, Barner said.
“All the living things in Puget Sound don’t need us to survive, but we need them to survive,” Barner said.
“We have lost too much shoreline already; hopefully, people will realize we need to save our shoreline for our kids.”
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