Washington DNR has an outdoor recreation plan, but not enough money to fund it

SEATTLE – One of former Commissioner of Public Lands Hilary Franz’s last acts was to birth a new strategic plan to guide the Department of Natural Resources on how to manage outdoor recreation on state land.

The Outdoor Access and Responsible Recreation Strategic Plan was finalized in January right before Franz left office, and it is DNR’s first attempt at a proactive statewide approach to manage surging interest in outdoor recreation.

The plan is designed to address big questions like “Who is recreating on DNR lands? How much outdoor recreation should be allowed there? Who should patrol these vast holdings?” It’s a blueprint to help DNR better manage its jurisdiction while juggling the needs of recreational visitors, environmental concerns and relationships with tribes. As such, the plan is heavy on under-the-hood recommendations like tracking tools and coordination methods, with proposals that are more about bureaucratic changes than shovel-ready projects.

Priorities outlined in the plan include more precise collection of visitation data, improving mechanisms for consulting with tribes, new approaches to curbing vandalism and illegal dumping, and hiring more DNR law enforcement.

Dave Upthegrove, the newly elected commissioner of public lands who was sworn in Jan. 15, has endorsed the plan. The catch: He might not have the funds to execute it.

“As a new commissioner, I take the approach of ‘yes and’ – meaning yes I support this management plan and I want to look for opportunities and resources to expand our recreational opportunities,” Upthegrove said in a late January interview.

But with new Gov. Bob Ferguson trying to find ways to reconcile a state budget with a $10 billion to $12 billion deficit, there’s a real chance that DNR might not even get the chance to implement anything outlined in its meticulously compiled strategic management plan.

DNR’s two-year recreation budget is $34 million, and Ferguson’s plan to manage the budget already highlights a $9 million shortfall to meet the agency’s existing obligations before any of its strategic management plan proposals are even implemented.

“I’m going to fight for every penny of funding we can secure, but I know these are tough budget times for the state, and I know federal grant funds are being threatened,” said Upthegrove, a former state legislator and Metropolitan King County Council member. “The budget situation makes this a depressing time to take the reins of the agency.”

Pros, cons of outdoor recreation

DNR manages some 5.6 million acres of state lands and waters, with over half of that land prioritized for money-generating activities. Revenue coming in from timber harvests, agriculture, grazing and wind power funds public schools and local governments.

Comparatively, recreation is a smaller slice of DNR’s mandate. Unlike a state park with a ranger-staffed entry booth, recreation on DNR lands typically occurs on sparsely developed forests, fields and hills. An unpaved road with a gate and a sign might be the only indication of DNR’s jurisdiction.

Popular DNR recreation sites near Seattle include mettle-testing hiking destinations like Mount Si and Mailbox Peak, the extensive network of mountain bike trails on Tiger Mountain and the Raging River State Forest, and the Mount Tahoma Trails Association backcountry huts in the foothills of Mount Rainier.

The strategic plan, however, expresses conflicting views about the relative merits of outdoor recreation. On one hand, it acknowledges how access to outdoor recreation improves the physical and mental health of Washington residents, providing opportunities for adventure, challenge and solitude. The plan cites a 2020 study by Headwaters Economics that found outdoor recreation was responsible for $26.5 billion in spending and supported 264,000 jobs.

On the other hand, the plan also warns that “increased outdoor recreation in the Pacific Northwest poses a growing threat to the region’s long-term environmental health,” especially as it relates to tribal treaty rights.

As the Tulalip Tribes, one of several Washington tribal governments consulted in the plan’s elaboration, noted in a 2018 document about the tribes’ relationship to inland mountains and valleys: “Recreational uses of the uplands often displace traditional spiritual practices or adversely affect natural resources – by the trampling of culturally significant plant communities or by the altering of elk herd movements as they shift locations to avoid disturbance from human activity. In addition, recreation can lead to a significant reduction in the privacy required for traditional cultural activities.”

Upthegrove sees striking the balance between these competing attitudes toward outdoor recreation as his main challenge.

“Achieving my goal of expanding recreational opportunities while not trashing the environment or harming tribal cultural resources is a central tension of this work but I am optimistic we can achieve this because we manage lots of land where there is room to meet competing interests,” he said.

Bigger picture

Upthegrove’s inauguration speech indicated that the state’s new public lands boss knows he has his work cut out for him and understands what’s at stake.

“We have an incredible responsibility to ensure the gifts of our state are available to all the people, regardless of age or ability, income or ZIP code,” the former Boy Scout said in his speech. “We must work to expand recreational opportunities and improve accessibility to recreation for everyone from hiking and biking to target shooting and horseback riding to share the same joy that brought us to this work with future generations.”

In the grand scheme of things, however, DNR is just one of three agencies that oversee state-owned lands alongside Washington State Parks and the Department of Fish and Wildlife, and a small player compared to the wealth of trails, campgrounds, ski areas and other recreation amenities that populate Washington’s federal lands like national forests and national parks.

So what’s the bigger picture? Former Outdoor Research CEO Dan Nordstrom served on a governor-appointed outdoor recreation task force and has been lobbying the state government to take the issue more seriously for years.

“Western states like Colorado, Oregon and Utah have been running circles around us and the DNR strategic plan is a necessary step toward bringing Washington into the modern era of outdoor recreation lands management,” he said. “But DNR efforts need to be integrated into a broader process including federal land managers which can’t be fully realized without strong leadership from the governor’s office.”

So far, Ferguson has appointed former REI corporate manager and Snoqualmie Tribe recreation policy manager Joe Impecoven as his outdoor recreation policy adviser – a new role that began under his predecessor, former Gov. Jay Inslee. But his office did not commit to funding DNR’s recreation shortfall.

“The Governor is committed to a fiscally responsible budget, and all cabinet agencies are being asked to identify efficiencies and prioritize their spending,” spokesperson Brionna Aho wrote via email in early February.

Out on the state’s public lands, meanwhile, trail stewards have one message: volunteer.

Kelly Jiang is the president of the Issaquah Alps Trail Club, whose remit covers trails on DNR-managed Tiger Mountain. The agency may be spread thin, but its lands offer some of the state’s best recreation experiences in locations where a volunteer organization can provide boots on the ground that DNR itself cannot. From the Issaquah group to Friends of Capitol Forest near Olympia, these civil society groups are the lifeblood of outdoor recreation on state land, especially amid a budget crunch,

“It’s incumbent upon people who love these recreation lands to step up,” Jiang said.