October-November 2007
Potential Park Status for Over 8,000 Watershed Acres
by Tim Paxton
Tim Paxton is currently president of Clean Water Alliance and a manufacturing design automation software consultant.
The biggest news in Lake Whatcom reservoir protection is the agreement between Whatcom County and the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) to place approximately 8,400 acres of watershed land into park status. This marks the beginning of a process and the next step will be a series of inter-grant land swaps with DNR to block up ownership for both DNR and Whatcom County. The development of the park plan is expected to begin soon.
The draft location of the proposed park shows that nearly all of Lookout Mountain will be park, connecting well with the community’s long-range vision for a Blanchard to Baker corridor. All the land above the North Lake Whatcom Trail will be park as well, placing the watershed’s most unstable, steep land into park status.
In the December issue of Whatcom Watch read the exciting story of the final passage of this historic land-use saga, from landslides, to land swaps, legislation and logging plans, to reconveyance for protected park status. The story involves many players along the way, including years of remarkable efforts by Linda Marrom, Alan Soicher, Jamie Berg and Lisa McShane.
