10/21/01
JAMES GELUSO
Skagit Valley Herald

Congress has appropriated $2 million to buy land along the Skagit River and its tributaries, a move environmentalists are hailing as a big step for protecting salmon and eagles in the Northwest.

The amount is the largest ever designated for the Skagit basin from the Land and Water Conservation Fund, an annual program that uses some of the money from offshore drilling to purchase land. Last year, Congress allocated $1 million to the Skagit River.

The money will be used by the U.S. Forest Service to buy land that’s considered critical to wildlife habitat, especially the chinook salmon, which is on the federal endangered species list. Land is purchased for conservation as well as recreational use, said Jim Chu, who manages the Wild and Scenic River program from the Forest Service’s Sedro-Woolley office.

“We’re trying to protect it, but it doesn’t mean we’re closing it off,” Chu said.

The Forest Service purchases land from willing sellers along the Skagit, and sometimes buys land from groups such as the Nature Conservancy and the Skagit Land Trust, said Len Barson of the Nature Conservancy’s Seattle office.

Chu said the program is used for lands that are adjacent to the Skagit River or a tributary. Land is most desirable if it has multiple benefits, such as salmon habitat, eagle habitat and high scenic value.

“What’s noteworthy about the Skagit is relatively speaking it’s still in good shape,” said Leslie Brown, also of the Nature Conservancy. Instead of spending money on restoring destroyed habitat, the federal government prefers to protect what habitat still exists, she said.

Preserving the salmon also brings tourists to Skagit County because the fish draw bald eagles to the area, said U.S. Rep. Rick Larsen, a Democrat who represents the region in Congress and who pushed for the appropriation for the Skagit area.

“It helps that the Skagit River Bald Eagle Reserve already exists and is one of the more popular attractions in Skagit County,” he said. “The Bald Eagle Reserve is something worth preserving, worth adding to.”

Larsen took a trip down the river between Marblemount and Rockport in April, which helped him understand what the $2 million will help protect, he said.

The money will be used for the wild and scenic river corridor, which begins at the national park boundary and runs to Sedro-Woolley. The corridor also includes the Sauk, Suiattle and Cascade rivers.

“This is a great boon to the Skagit, to the preservation of our resources and our salmon runs,” said Bob Carey, Skagit area manager for the Nature Conservancy. “We would not have received the support if not for Rep. Larsen and the rest of our congressional delegation.”

The additional money won’t allow sellers to get higher prices, Carey said, since the Forest Service is prohibited from paying more than market value for the land, no matter how ecologically valuable it may be.