A 14-acre donation of land near Lake Merwin is among a recent slew of acquisitions by the Washington State Department of Natural Resources.
On Sept. 5, the DNR announced it was acquiring a total of 264 acres of forestland in southwest Washington and the Olympic Peninsula. In Clark County, that included donation of land along Buncombe Hollow Road, adjacent to other state-owned land.
The land will support the state’s Common School Trust, a DNR news release stated. Revenues from that type of land support school construction projects across the state.
That acquisition joins 40 acres in Cowlitz County 20 miles east of Woodland paid for by prior sales of state lands, the release stated. That land will also benefit the Common School Trust.
To the north, the DNR is also picking up about 82 acres in Clallam County and 128 acres in Pacific County using funds from the Washington state Legislature allocated to replace lands subject to Endangered Species Act protections, the release stated.
“It is critical for my department to continue to sustainably support schools and critical local services and to keep working forests working for generations to come, and these transactions will do exactly that,” Commissioner of Public Lands Hilary Franz said in the press release.
The September announcement follows other acquisitions from earlier this year, including 640 acres of Clark County forestland burned in 2022’s Nakia Creek Fire.
