Lawmakers, recreation advocates appear united in working to reauthorize popular Land and Water Conservation Fund

LEWISTON – Members of Congress and outdoor and recreation advocates are making an effort to extend a popular program that taps federal offshore oil and gas drilling royalties to fund everything from city parks to backcountry trails.

The Land and Water Conservation Fund is set to expire on Sept. 30. Bills in the U.S. House and Senate would reauthorized the program that was first created in 1964. Since that time, the program has funded billions of dollars worth of conservation and recreation across the country.

Each year the program collects about $900 million in offshore drilling royalties. Congress rarely fully funds the program that is used by state, local and federal agencies to do everything from acquire important habitat on federal land or pay for improvements to city parks.

“The LWCF is the key tool that we use to help communities, to help the state, to help our nation preserve those recreation opportunities and to make the most cost-effective use of the land,” Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., said during at a kickoff campaign counting down the last 100 days of the program. “In the foothills of the Cascades, in the shadows of Mt. Rainier, it has helped us continue to preserve great resources and great assets.”

Cantwell is one of more than 20 co-sponsors of the Senate version of a reauthorization bill.

In Spokane, the funds helped purchase land near the Little Spokane River as well as some of the trails on Mount Spokane, among several other local projects.

In Idaho, the program has been used to acquire land or, more commonly, conservation easements at places such as the breaks of the lower Salmon River. LuVerne Grussing, a retired river manager for the Bureau of Land Management, tapped the program to give floaters and hunters access to private ranching land along the lower Salmon.

“It was always viewed as a win-win situation by just about everybody,” he said. “We were able to increase the ownership along the lower Salmon River substantially to prevent various types of development and roads and we were able to do it with the blessing of just about everybody.”

For example, he said the purchase of land or conservation easements using program funds is done on a willing-seller basis only. In most cases, Grussing said his former agency purchased easements on ranches instead of acquiring the land outright.

“It’s just one of those things that worked as intended and basically even local politicians, for example, were very receptive to using those funds to both maintain the ranching industry and diversify a little bit by selling conservation rights to their property while continuing to be able to function as a profitable ranching business,” he said.

Local communities have taken advantage of the fund as well via 50-50 matching grants. At Lewiston, it has been tapped to develop or add amenities to places like the Bryden Canyon Golf Course, Airport Park, Modie Park, Kiwanis Park and Sunset Park.

“Any community of any size probably has at least one Land and Water Conservation Park,” said Lynn Moss, the former director of Lewiston’s Parks and Recreation Department.

The program has two main parts, one that funds grants to local governments through state grants and one that funds land and easement purchases by federal land management agencies.

Idaho Gov. C.L. “Butch” Otter favors reauthorization of the program, according to his spokesman John Hanian, but prefers the part of the program that extends grants to local governments.

“We are working with the (Idaho) congressional delegation and specifically Rep. Mike Simpson on a policy that restores the original intent of the fund and making sure we are gearing it toward the state-assisted grant program,” Hanian said. “We have seen the benefit of it, so I think it’s fair to say we are generally supportive.”

David Langhorst, director of the Idaho Parks and Recreation Department, said the program is particularly helpful to rural communities that might not otherwise be able to pay for park development and improvements.

“There is hardly a city or small town or county in Idaho that has not benefited from this in the form of ballfields, picnic shelters, rural parks or trails,” he said.

Cantwell’s bill and another in the House would permanently reauthorize the program. Craig Gehrke of the Wilderness Society at Boise is pushing for a permanent reauthorization and full funding of the program. In the past, the program has been extended for short periods, and part of the money it raises has been diverted for other things like reducing the federal deficit.

“We want to see that reauthorized permanently and we think it deserves full funding. That is the promise that was made and it ought to be kept,” Gehrke said.

Spokesman-Review reporter Eli Francovich contributed to this report.