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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Legislative committee takes on testy wolves and wildfire bills

OLYMPIA – Two of the most contentious issues in rural Eastern Washington, wildfires and wolves, are generating demands for change and a stream of legislative proposals.

After a hearing on bills directed at one or the other Thursday, the chairman of the Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee said he’ll try to work with sponsors to craft compromise legislation on each.

Rep. Brian Blake, D-Aberdeen, said he supports some form of “good Samaritan” legislation that would allow landowners to fight fires without prior approval when a blaze breaks out on nearby state land. People trying to keep early fires from spreading shouldn’t face criminal or civil penalties, and the state shouldn’t be held liable if they are injured, he said.

Efforts to improve cooperation and communication between the state Department of Natural Resources and local officials and residents could be part of that package, Blake said.

Crafting a single wolf bill from seven pending proposals could be trickier. Residents and officials from northeast Washington counties said they need better tools to keep the growing number of wolves in their region from killing livestock while the rest of the state waits for the wolves to get re-established there. Wildlife and conservation groups said the current wolf management system should be allowed time to work.

Rep. Joel Kretz, R-Wauconda, is proposing to capture wolves in northeast Washington and relocate them to suitable areas in other parts of the state. The most suitable spot would be the Olympic Peninsula, he said, because it has less livestock but plenty of lowland areas where wolves could survive in the winter.

Blake, whose district covers part of the peninsula, doesn’t like that option but could support another Kretz proposal to take northeast Washington wolves off the state’s endangered species list, while leaving them on the list for the other areas until they migrate there naturally. But he doubts he can get enough support for that from fellow Democrats on the committee, or in the full House.