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Farm and Ranch Lands Protection Program Helps Preserve Washington Town's Last
Dairy Farm
AGNEW -- Forty-four acres of prime Dungeness Valley dairy farmland will
remain in agricultural use forever under an easement bought by Clallam County
commissioners with their Conservation Futures Fund.
The easement paid $567,899 to farmers Jerry and Mary Schmidt -- $346,249 in
county money and $221,650 in Federal funds from the
Farm and Ranch Lands
Protection Program, administered by the
Natural Resources Conservation Service.
The county's share came from $250,000 set aside from timber revenues and
budgeted in 2002, the interest it earned, and about $60,000 in new county money,
Commissioner Steve Tharinger said.
The sum included about $10,000 that about 600 private citizens had donated to
the Conservation Futures Fund.
Commissioners appropriated the money following a public hearing Dec. 7. They
acted to meet an end-of-year deadline to receive the Federal funds, Tharinger
said.
"If we didn't take some action, there would be no dollars available in the
future," he said.
"I think we did the right thing."
Land trust acquisition
The easement, which represents the independently appraised difference Schmidt
would receive from selling the land to developers, paid off the loan Schmidt had
used to buy the property.
Now the easement is owned by the North Olympic Land Trust, which sealed the deal
last week.
The county, through its advisory Agricultural Commission, had solicited
proposals for farmland easements across Clallam County, but received only 15
responses.
Most were for 15-acre plots, the minimum size under the county's agricultural
resource zoning.
"We wanted a larger chunk that would stay in agriculture," said Tharinger.
"Larger acreage would have more agricultural viability. That's why we want to a
larger acreage.'"
The Schmidts' land near Spring Road lies next to the Olympic Discovery Trail,
for which the Schmidts granted an easement a couple of years ago, and stretches
nearly to Old Olympic Highway.
Fund exhausted
The transaction with Schmidt exhausted the Conservation Futures Fund, Tharinger
said, and there is no immediate plan to replenish it.
Timber revenues have been low recently, he said. Commissioners could fund more
easements through a property tax of a quarter-cent per $1,000 of assessed
valuation, which Tharinger said they are unlikely to do.
An alternate revenue route would be a real estate excise tax, which would
require voter approval.
"Right now I don't see us replenishing [the conservation fund] in the near term,
which would be the next few months," Tharinger said.
Story by Jim Casey, Peninsula Daily
News.
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