By SUE RYAN
News staff writer
July 4, 2007

The facilitator group who will coordinate the transfer of 400 acres of PacificCorp Powerdale land introduced themselves June 26 to the Hood River Watershed Group.

The Columbia Land Trust has established a Hood River office and starts work in Hood River during the coming weeks.

Under a 2003 agreement among several parties in Hood River County, PacificCorp agreed to transfer the land to another entity for wildlife habitat and recreational management. The lands border both sides of the Hood River in the lower valley.

While it is still unknown who the final landowner will be, that decision is up to a working group including members of the Hood River Watershed Group and PacificCorp.

Columbia Land Trust’s role is to begin working with the community and adjacent landowners on what the vision for the 400 acres should be. Executive Director Glenn Lamb explained the group formed in Vancouver, Wash., in 1990 because of concerns about development.

“We saw lawsuits being filed to stop development and we knew in our hearts that landowners cared about our land,” Lamb said. “Our approach was to look for a way to take positive, collaborative action to protect land.”

Lamb said the vision for Columbia Land Trust centered on values inherent to the Pacific Northwest. He cited those as being stunning natural beauty, abundant clean water, diverse wildlife, and rich natural resources among vibrant communities.

“Our aim is to have the lands we conserve benefit the larger community,” he said.

He cited the major changing factor in the Pacific Northwest being an increase in population that can start to put pressure on lands set aside for conservation. Lamb said the land trust’s approach is to balance between growth and conservation.

Their approach is to work directly with people in the area. Lamb said they learned from experience that bringing people in from outside the community doesn’t build strength.

“The philosophy began based on the people of that area working on it, not people from outside. So, it’s important to us to keep that concept,” Lamb said.

To date, the trust has conserved 7,000 acres of priority habitat lands through the Columbia River region, which include 200 acres of farms and forests and 875 acres of urban green space.

Associate Director Brad Paymar explained the trust has a three-year goal to triple what they have accomplished so far. To reach that benchmark, the trust has now established offices in Astoria and Hood River as well as their main headquarters in Vancouver, Wash.

The person staffing the Hood River office will be Lindsay Cornelius, the group’s former conservation coordinator. She now holds the title of conservation lead for the Gorge and East Cascades.

She explained the land trust approach when working with conservation issues is to take time to establish local contacts as well as measure the condition of the land.

“We do baseline studies, inventories and surveys of plants and animals. That includes rare, threatened and endangered species,” she said.

Cornelius said the trust then establishes future desired conditions and goals.

“We like to keep the finger on the pulse of what is going on around the properties,” she said. “To keep in touch with what the community is thinking of our efforts.”

Cornelius said most of her work to date has been on the Washington side of the Columbia Gorge. Her actions have involved managing land in a variety of ways including restoration and some ranching.

Paymar explained that whoever ends up owning the land would be working over the next few years with all of the settlement parties as well as holding public meetings. The goal would be to develop an overall management plan for the Powerdale property.

“We’re the selected group to facilitate the transfer for longtime ownership for perpetual conservation,” Paymar said.