Washington State Department of Natural Resources

KUOW 94.9 FM recently aired a story -- reported by yours truly -- about a controversial land exchange in Port Ludlow on the Olympic Peninsula. 

The Washington state Department of Natural Resources wants to trade thick forests  around Port Ludlow for Pope Resources clearcuts in the Olympic foothills. 

The story spotlights the Port Ludlow exchange, which is one small part of a larger DNR strategy under fire from conservationists and citizens, as detailed by a longer Web version of the KUOW story.

The Washington state DNR manages 5.6 million acres of public property, including forests, grasslands, croplands, aquatic and commercial land.   But the agency also gets rid of public forests via land exchanges with private companies. 

The DNR's state-wide strategy pulls public ownership -- and protection --from scattered lowland forests at risk of redevelopment due to nearby urban or highway sprawl.  In return, the DNR accepts swathes of timberland higher up in the mountains;  the buffers between the land and development pressures make it easy for the DNR to create big parcels of land for future timber harvests.

While the trades reduce the DNR's management costs, they also allow older growth public forests to be rezoned and redeveloped for private profit -- at a time when school, state and county budgets are hurting.  The state's Constitution mandates that the DNR revenues produced by selling the public's natural resources -- such as timber or shellfish -- support public schools, state institutions, and county services. 

Though the DNR's land has belonged to the public since sta

Plans to expand a proposed 42-turbine wind farm onto state land have been shot down by the Washington State Department of Natural Resources (DNR) because the area is home to the endangered spotted owl, reports Kathie Durbin of The Columbian.

SDS Lumber Company had considered leasing the forested land for possible expansion of their Whistling Ridge Energy Project in southwest Washington, but withdrew because of concerns over endangered species in the area, a DNR spokesman said. The controversial land is prime spotted owl habitat and the DNR is federally required to treat it as such.

A similar story was making headlines last month, InvestigateWest noted, when the presence of the endangered marbled murrelet complicated plans for a 32-turbine wind mill, also in southwest Washington. Towers in the Radar Ridge project would stand directly in the shorebird's flight path between ocean feeding grounds and the only remaining nesting site in the area. Not unlike the Whistling Ridge project, the land is owned by the state Department of Natural Resources, and is leased to Energy Northwest, a public power developer.

Both cases highlight Washington power companies' struggle to comply with I-937, a state initiative that requires large energy companies to obtain 15 percent of their electricity from renewable resources, such as wind. The initiative, intended to to help wean the state off fossil fuels and turn to green energy, has stirred up debate as to just how "green" wind power can be -- if winged wildlife are harmed in the process.