11/14/06 DNR land exchange meetings

Washington Ag November 14, 2006 More public "Open House" meetings are scheduled this week regarding state trust land exchanges proposed by the Department of Natural Resources. All the meetings begin at 6:30 pm and one is tonight in Stevens County in Suncrest at Lakeside Middle School. On Wednesday November 15th there will be one in Colville at the DNR Armory Building and Thursday the 16th in Okanogan at Okanogan Inn & Suites. State Land Commissioner Doug Sutherland says local impacts are taken into consideration when deciding these land exchanges. He cites as example a parcel in Chelan county on which there is a lake used as an emergency water supply by a local water district. Sutherland: "Now if I exchange that and the new property owner locks that off, what happens? And so okay, hmmm. Maybe that is not such a good idea after all. Yeah, it is a scattered parcel and it is a pain in the neck to be able to manage it because of the amount of public presence there, but at the same time, gee whiz if we unload that sucker it is going cause some real downstream problems. So now we have to cogitate and see does that really make sense." DNR says repositioning state trust lands through exchanges can increase long-term trust revenue production which among other things help to build public schools and universities. I'm Bob Hoff.