Citizen led efforts to save Cougar Mountain’s DeLeo Wall from clear cutting

Photo: My wife Cathy on the DeLeo wall trail on Cougar Mountain.

A year ago a company requested permission from the Washington Department of Natural Resources to clear-cut harvest all the timber on 37 acres of steep property between Cougar Mountain State Park and May Creek, in the City of Newcastle, just feet from the Renton City Limits.  The land is too steep for significant development, so the owners  have turned to logging as a way to make an income from the land. Neither Newcastle nor Renton has a “timber harvest” zone, but State forestry permits currently supersede city zoning.

In fairness to the timber industry, timber harvests are an important part of Washington State’s economy. They support high paying jobs, and timber harvest fees provide funding for public schools, colleges and universities. Most of us buy wood products. If our use of wood is long-term (as in building a home), and the forest source is sustainably managed/replanted, and timber harvest and transport are done energy-efficiently, then wood production can theoretically pull and store CO2 from the atmosphere.  This makes wood potentially greener than many other building materials.

But occasionally there is a proposed timber harvest on land that might be better suited as a permanent public amenity.  The DeLeo Wall is one of these situations.

When this proposed timber harvest came to Renton’s attention, we transmitted our initial environmental impact concerns to the Department of Natural Resources via this letter.  While we largely cited the Washington Administrative Code when identifying conflicts and concerns to the state, the timber harvest also conflicts with the intent and recommendations of the May Creek Basin Action Plan that I covered in yesterday’s blog post. For instance, The May Creek Basin Plan recommends a minimum 65% forest retention (keeping 65 % of the tree canopy) on future developed land draining into May Creek to avoid filling the creek with sediment and harming salmon; yet this DeLeo Wall logging permit-application proposes a 100% clear-cut.

Photo: Water crossing the DeLeo Wall Trail on the way to May Creek

In addition to environmental impacts, logging of the site would negatively impact recreation and valley-wide aesthetics.  The 37 acre property located north of May Creek is contiguous on two sides to Cougar Mountain Regional Wildland Park. The property is traversed by the long established DeLeo Wall Hiking Trail. The trail offers panoramic views of Mount Rainier and pastoral farms of May Valley. It networks with trails to Renton, Newcastle and Issaquah and all of the trails of Cougar Mountain Park.

Many Renton residents, especially those in the north-east corner of our city, have a territorial views of Cougar Mountain and DeLeo Wall, and many of them trek the trails.

Photo: A view from the top of DeLeo wall.  There was too much cloud cover on Tuesday to see Mount Rainier.

A citizen-led grass roots organization has sprung up with the goal of partnering with the nearby cities and the broader community to create a public-private partnership to purchase the property as permanent open space.  For more information on this effort go to www.savedeleowall.org.  On this website you can find many photos and maps of the site.

Map courtesy of  www.savedeleowall.org. 

For those of us that have been involved in purchasing public open space, purchasing this 37 acres seems feasible specifically because it is not developable.  If it were 37 acres of flat land zoned for dense suburban development, the fair market value would likely be in the tens of millions of dollars,  beyond the typical property aquisition budgets of nearby cities and conservation grants.  But as a steep hillside near wetlands, with current commercial value only for tree-growing, the land may be worth something closer to the net profit from harvesting trees two or three times during the next century (the timber value minus the costs of logging it).  While I’ve never seen an expert appraisal for this property, and I’ve never harvested trees for a living, I estimate this value could be somewhere in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Funding for open space preservation could be provided by grant awards from numerous local, state and federal agencies including:  Conservations Futures Funding, King – Conservation District, Salmon Recovery Funding, & Recreation and Conservation Office. Also the Washington Wildlife and Recreation Program and the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation have grant money available. DeLeo Wall scores very well against stated criteria for such funding sources.

This and nearby properties have been on King County’s parkland acquisition wish list for decades. In March 1990 the county wrote to one of the parcel owners. The letter states: “since 1983 they have been actively pursuing purchase of lands for the park.”  As recently as March 2018 the county published a map showing the DeLeo Wall parcel as “in scope,” i.e. still on their wish list.

The County’s far-sighted determination is to be commended. For over 35 years King County has been unwavering in its desire to preserve these environmentally critical parcels.

But for any public purchase of the land to proceed, we must have a mutually-agreeable appraisal,  funding to cover fair market value, and a willing seller. That is what the community and nearby governments are currently striving for.   As a Renton Mayoral candidate, I pledge to continue to assist this effort in any way I can.

Photo: Looking over DeLeo wall down the slope/cliff below.