Outlay By State A Solid Investment

In 2020, forecasters say, 50 percent more people will live in Spokane County. That’s 200,000 more people yearning to work and play amid the beautiful vistas in our region.

But with that many people moving in, the pressures to encroach on those vistas will be enormous. That’s why it is encouraging to see the state taking action now.

The latest effort was the purchase of 160 acres surrounded by Mount Spokane State Park. With a New Year’s Eve deadline bearing down on them, state officials finally pulled the trigger on a deal that will preserve the beauty and recreational opportunities at Mount Spokane.

The purchase ended 10 years of negotiation and agitation. For $755,000 the state acquired the Quartz Mountain tract that is the key to expanding cross-country skiing trails. An out-of-courtsettlement gave the state until Dec. 31 to either complete a deal or provide access to the land for logging, mining and other uses.

To be sure, the deal didn’t come cheap. But the preservation of this beautiful area outweighs the costs. To have logging and mining activities in the middle of skiing, snowmobiling and berry picking would have seriously damaged the park’s appeal.

For years, the state had tried to figure out a way to acquire the Quartz Mountain property. In 1996, it offered the owners nearly 300 acres near Riverside State Park in a trade. But nearby residents - fearing clearcutting and development - protested, forcing the state to back away.

In the meantime, a Gig Harbor partnership purchased the land and filed a lawsuit, saying the state was preventing it from harvesting trees that were damaged during the 1996 ice storm.

It was in negotiating a settlement to that lawsuit that the state proposed purchasing the land outright. In 1998, the state Parks and Recreation Commission authorized the money.

As it turns out, the outright purchase of the land allows the state to preserve both Riverside State Park (by not trading nearby land) and Mount Spokane State Park.

Governments across our nation are grappling with sprawl and the preservation of green space within urban boundaries, and increasingly, one solution has been the purchase of private property.

Locally, forward-looking leaders have done the same. Land near Liberty Lake, the Spokane River and now, Mount Spokane, has been purchased to make sure we have urban retreats in the future.

The up-front costs can be expensive but the investment pays off handsomely in the long run. One of the beauties of living in the Inland Northwest is the quick and easy access to the stunning mountains, rivers and lakes in our midst.

Land purchases such as the one at Mount Spokane help preserve our region’s No. 1 asset.