Lands race reveals gulf between rural life, urban goals

All along State Route 6, from Raymond to Pe Ell, red and blue campaign signs dot the fields, while hardwoods turn yellow at the fringe. It’s a telltale color palette, signaling the approach of fall and with it, election season.

Most of the signs are for president, governor, or congressperson. But many in this politically purple corner of Washington are paying equally close attention to the race for Commissioner of Public Lands. After two terms in office, incumbent Hilary Franz, a Democrat, has opted not to run for a third, opening up the top spot at the Department of Natural Resources. The agency oversees nearly 6 million acres of public land and regulates the management of at least as many acres of private forestland. It’s a significant responsibility, especially in a region so dependent on forestry and fishing.

And this summer’s primary has ratcheted the stakes up even higher than they might otherwise have been. Jaime Herrera Beutler, the former Republican congresswoman representing Washington’s Third District, earned the most votes overall. But a 51-vote margin between Democrat Dave Upthegrove and Republican Sue Kuehl Pederson triggered an automatic hand recount. That recount was completed earlier this month and reduced the already razor-thin margin to 49 votes, still in Upthegrove’s favor.

Contrasting positions

Those 49 votes were the difference between what many small landowners and farmers regard as a win-win situation, and the now very real possibility that the next commissioner will favor preservation over management.

Herrera Beutler and Pederson are both pro-management and want to increase logging on public lands that aren’t already protected. Herrera Beutler also thinks the DNR should pay more attention to tidelands and the challenges facing shellfish farmers, with whom she has already worked closely during her time in Congress.

Upthegrove, on the other hand, has made the preservation of “legacy” forests one of his top priorities. These trees are bigger and older than anything grown by small forest landowners. But it’s his philosophy they’re concerned about — the sense that he doesn’t appreciate the disproportionate effect that environmental regulation can have on their bottom lines. Or, for that matter, their rural lifestyle.

For instance, the stream buffers mandated by the state’s Forest Practices Rules cut far deeper into a tree farm’s acreage than an industrial plantation’s. Tree farmers like Nick Somero, who manages roughly 50 acres, spent years trying to convince the state to take this into account and relax the rules for small forest landowners.

“Forty-five to 50% of my property is under restrictions for stream buffers in the timber,”

Somero estimates.

Shellfish

As for the shellfish growers, they struck a deal with the Washington Department of Ecology in late 2019 after a rancorous and public controversy surrounding their use of pesticides to control burrowing shrimp. The growers agreed to stop pursuing a permit to use imidacloprid on their oyster beds in exchange for the state’s commitment to help fund and organize research on alternative pest control methods. But after five years, that research has failed to yield any cost-effective solutions, while the growers continue to lose ground to the shrimp.

Kathleen Nisbet Moncy is a second-generation oyster farmer and an advocate for Willapa Bay’s shellfish industry — the largest private employer in Pacific County. She has witnessed the shrimp’s impact firsthand.

“Growers have lost hundreds of acres of active tidelands,” she said. “We’ve had multiple growers that have gone out of business and/or transitioned their business into conglomerates, because they could no longer afford to farm.”

To environmental groups, the mere suggestion of narrowing stream buffers or applying pesticides would likely be a non-starter. Even the word “management” itself has become charged — a euphemism for exploitation of the land.

But to many of the tree and shellfish farmers who spoke with the Observer, management means stewardship. It means seeing multiple values in any given natural resource and constantly trying to compromise between them all. As Nisbet Moncy put it: “Why would I want to hurt something that puts food on my table and clothes on my kids’ back?”

It’s hard to appreciate the nuance of this position when public discourse around natural resources so often portrays a winner-take-all contest between environmentalists on one side and industry on the other. It’s even harder when this divide increasingly coincides with larger cultural and political rifts, which force even independently minded landowners to pick sides: rural versus urban, Democrat versus Republican.

Solutions Table

In the face of such intense polarization, one of the most meaningful roles the Commissioner of Public Lands can play is that of a facilitator of dialogue.

Dr. Paula Swedeen serves as Policy Director at Conservation Northwest and participated in one such attempt at dialogue: the Solutions Table. First convened by Commissioner Franz in 2018 as a way for timber and environmental interests to seek joint solutions, the group met more than 20 times over the course of two years before ultimately falling apart. Whoever wins in November could try something like it again. But, as Dr. Swedeen explains, it will take political endurance and willpower.

“It’s going to take a lot of work, so whoever is in that role can’t just step away if it feels too hard, because it’s going to be hard.”

Generations

Still, most small forest landowners and farmers are motivated by something far deeper than politics. They manage the land because they love it, and because doing so is a core part of their identity. Stewardship is a way of life. And in these parts, most farmers — whether of trees or oysters — have been at it for multiple generations.

For the Habersetzers in Frances, there have already been five. And Nettie Falkner (née Habersetzer) has seen to it that the sixth is well-informed about the history of Custer Creek Tree Farm. Each of her three children possesses an identical binder full of clippings, documents and photographs that she has meticulously organized over the years. One of the living room walls is adorned with old loggers’ and farriers’ tools, and the shelf beneath it with the bottles and trinkets that she is still digging up in the fields. The house is quite literally a museum.

As Nettie tells it, her late husband Bob Falkner was the more civically engaged of the pair, while the role of stewarding the farm and telling its story fell naturally to her.

“He was much more involved with the legislative aspect of it ... and I was more hands on the land, because it was my family and my roots, [and] that’s where my emphasis was,” she said.

Neither approach is more important than the other. But one did precede the other. To figure out which, one need only find a campaign sign beneath a tree, and ask: Which came first? Which reaches deeper into the dirt?