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Tieton River Canyon funding successfully completed

 U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service grant caps efforts to protect 10,400 acres

Sept. 27, 2005

Yakima – The Nature Conservancy’s three-year fundraising campaign to conserve 10,400 acres of ecologically rich lands along the beautiful Tieton River is complete, thanks to the latest grant announced today by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

The Service’s announcement of a $2.4 million grant from the Cooperative Endangered Species Conservation Fund comes on the heels of a $2.8 million grant made by the state Legislature earlier this year. The two grants complete an ambitious campaign—spearheaded by the Conservancy, the state Department of Fish and Wildlife, the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, and other partners—to secure funding for acquisition of the lands from Plum Creek Timber Co.

The Conservancy began the campaign early in 2003. All told, more than $8 million has been raised to conserve lands along the Tieton, which flows into the Naches River about 20 miles west of Yakima. Before the Conservancy stepped in, the lands—including some significant stands of mature ponderosa pine—were slated for logging and possible second-home development.

"This is a huge conservation win, a gift to all of us who care about our natural world," said David Weekes, director of the Conservancy’s state chapter. "The campaign was successful," he added, "in large part because of strong collaboration, unwavering support from civic leaders, and a shared recognition of the Tieton’s ecological significance and its contribution to our natural heritage."

"The completion of the Tieton River land acquisition project is a big victory for the Yakima area, and for our entire state," said U.S. Senator Patty Murray. "This project represents the kind of public-private partnership that makes me proud to represent Washington state, and I want to thank the Nature Conservancy and the Yakima County commissioners for their hard work and their dedication in successfully protecting one of our state’s most precious natural treasures for generations to come."

The conservation project safeguards nearly eight miles of the Tieton River and all of the adjacent uplands, a place of considerable diversity because of its location between the Columbia Basin shrub-steppe and the forested eastern front of the Cascade Mountains. The project area supports mature ponderosa pine forests, oak woodlands, intact shrub-steppe, riparian floodplains, and dense streamside stands of willow, dogwood, and cottonwood. At least four federally listed and 15 state-listed species are found there, including spotted and flammulated owls, nesting golden eagles, bighorn sheep, and steelhead and bull trout.

The project is entirely within the boundary of the Wenatchee National Forest and adjacent to the state-owned Oak Creek Wildlife Area. Because of the checkerboard ownership pattern in this part of the state, the project’s completion means that more than 20,000 acres—nearly an entire township—of now fragmented lands will be knit into a contiguous landscape of protected habitat.

Today’s grant is the second from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Cooperative Endangered Species Conservation Fund. The Conservancy has also received two grants from the Washington Wildlife and Recreation Program, or WWRP, appropriated by the Legislature during the last two budget sessions.

Betsy Bloomfield, the Conservancy’s South Central Washington program manager, praised the many partners who made a difference in the campaign, particularly the Yakima County commissioners and Sen. Patty Murray. "Their support was crucial," she said.

All of the land, except one section totaling 630 acres that the Conservancy will retain, will be transferred to the state for inclusion in the Oak Creek Wildlife Area. The Conservancy will recover its direct costs but make no net profit in that transaction.

The land the Conservancy retains will remain open to public use. It also will become a site for science-based restoration, a learning laboratory that will enable restoration practitioners throughout the region better understand how to steward and restore dry, East Side forests. Private and public fundraising for this restoration work is already underway and will continue for several years, Bloomfield said.

"Our ownership will provide us with an excellent opportunity to understand the dynamics of ponderosa pine forests, so different from our wet, West Side forests," Bloomfield said. "It’s not enough to put land into conservation-status. It also needs to be restored and stewarded, ensuring that natural processes can still unfold and wildlife still flourish."

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