Private Land Reclamation Project:   Executive Summary   

The goal of this policy is to provide monetary incentives in the form of cash payments and property tax adjustments to private property owners for the purpose of maintaining and/or improving the riparian habitat supportive of salmonids in the freshwater stages of their life cycles on their properties.

Salmonids need a stream-riparian habitat in order to recover to sustainable levels in the Pacific Northwest once again. Bodies of water, supportive of salmonids, which run through urban, suburban, and rural areas are often extensively degraded, heavily modified, or simply nonexistent as natural, functioning riparian habitats. Salmonids require certain key elements in the riparian zone, stated in this document, to survive in their freshwater stages of life. Although current buffer zone requirements exist for Washington State, landowners either do not realize the benefits of such buffer zones or may not be aware of minimum buffer requirements. Enforcement of existing policies and laws regarding buffer zones is, at best, under-funded, and educational outreach to these landowners is limited.

The Statewide Salmon Recovery Strategy (SSRC), 'Extinction is Not an Option,' addresses this issue indirectly in the section titled Land Use, as well as referring to the Timber Fish and Wildlife Agreement. None of these sections in the SSRC specifically address the enhancement of riparian habitat on private property, but the principals set forth could apply. Using the Timber Fish and Wildlife Agreement as an example, the SSRC discusses the benefits that will be gained with riparian zones. Unfortunately, in the SSRC there is no mention of how to apply these riparian buffer zones in a general sense, let alone on private property. There is still no single approach to riparian zone size that has gained universal acceptance and application to date.

This policy is focused on non-corporate, private property landowners in Western Washington. It is applicable to any landowner whose land contains any natural bodies of water, e.g., streams, wetlands, and lakes, which affect native salmonids, or potential salmonid-bearing, habitat. Prioritization of these conservation efforts will be determined by using the criteria defined within the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife’s "Priority Habitats and Species List Habitat Program" and other criteria as stated in this policy. The purpose of focusing this policy on privately owned land is because 55.4% of the land in Washington State is privately owned (Washington Department of Natural Resources, 1983).

Although there are currently 52 grants available in Washington State dedicated to environmental restoration (28 of which are accessible by private landowners), all of these programs either have a specific target area or require a cost share by the landowner. In contrast, our proposed policy will not require any cost share, and aims at motivating private landowners to actively participate in the restoration of salmon habitat in their own backyards.

 

Kim Brown, Deb Graves, Sage Jensen, Mike Rechner

 

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