deja view

Kah Tai Lagoon Nature Park exists today because of the efforts of many Port Townsend citizens, but there are a few heroes who went far beyond what ordinary people would have committed to the cause. Four lawsuits were brought by citizens to protect the area from a variety of development threats. Not all were successful, but all were paid for by the unflagging dedication of hard-working folks.

Years after the park was a reality, the attorney fees for the lawsuits were still being paid off, one paycheck or one fundraiser at a time. The Ziggy cartoon was found in the archives of records saved by those citizens, tucked in with all the careful documentation of payments for attorney fees from nearly three decades ago.

The current incarnation of Kah Tai protectors hope that it never comes to that again. But we have already paid for an attorney to look at the records and provide guidance during the present effort to finalize the 6(f)(3) boundaries that will protect the park in perpetuity. We are waiting for the Washington State Recreation and Conservation Office to 'ascertain the boundaries in continuity with the original grant intent' and recommend that permanent boundary to the National Park Service (NPS). NPS will have the final decision.

park acquisition schedule - parcel Z

In the application process for the LWCF acquisition grant that created Kah Tai Lagoon Nature Park, an acquisition schedule was included in the submission attachments with OMB form 80-R0184 under 'Project Approval Information, Part IV, 3c. Attachments'. Note that this is what was proposed at the beginning of the grant process. Some private properties were tied up in probate issues that couldn't be sorted out in a timely way and some private owners decided to donate subsequently so the final number of 'negotiated purchase' and 'donation (private)' properties changed slightly. But parcel Z is 70 acres, not appraised and no cost listed so no purchase was necessary, and it is coded '4. Land transfer (public)'. That 70 acres includes all City, County, PUD and Port lands committed for the park. Click on the image to enlarge the schedule for viewing.  Note that the Office of Management and Budget, OMB, is a federal office so the form was required by the federal LWCF process.

all the words you need to understand

Kah Tai Lagoon Nature Park was created with "funding provided by The Land and Water Conservation Fund".

If you follow this link to the LWCF page of Washington State Recreation and Conservation Office you will find the following language at the bottom of the first page:

"All property acquired or developed with Land and Water Conservation Fund grants must be kept forever exclusively for public outdoor recreation use."

Now, how hard was that?

Yes, as a matter of fact, it IS a nature park

A pervasive urban myth about Kah Tai Lagoon Nature Park is that it was NEVER intended to be a NATURE park, that the word 'nature' got inserted into the name inappropriately and recently, not by anyone in authority but by a few misguided individuals seeking to prevent development in the Park.

However, in the Environmental Impact Assessment in the 1981 LWCF grant proposal, Kah Tai is referred to explicitly as a 'de-facto wildlife park'. Perhaps those that object to the term 'nature park' would prefer 'wildlife park'? Does that suggest a region more amenable to development?

More importantly, the City of Port Townsend developed a Comprehensive Parks and Recreation Plan in 1986, and the Plan refers repeatedly to the Park by its full name, Kah Tai Lagoon Nature Park. The 1986 plan is posted on the City's excellent website as a part of Resolution 86-028.

government in action

The Port of Port Townsend insists that its land in Kah Tai Lagoon Nature Park will be released from any obligations to remain as park land in 2012, when a lease expires. The Port's attorney has stated that the lease controls, but only because she carefully avoided the existence and timing of a binding contract between the Port of Port Townsend and the State of Washington signed in 1981. That contract controls, not the 1982 lease. Any agreement between the Port and a third party (the City) signed subsequently does not control a binding contract with the state, and thereby with the Federal Department of the Interior, for the Land and Water Conservation Funds that created Kah Tai Lagoon Nature Park in 1981.

Ten citizens traveled to Olympia on March 31, 2011, to make certain that the State Recreation and Conservation Office (RCO) Board and staff understood the timing of the contract and the lease. Citizens brought along their own attorney's analysis of the situation. In response to testimony by eight citizens and letters of support by 38 citizens, the Board recognized that it was not their role to 'negotiate' a boundary that already exists and purged its erroneous Briefing Memo with regard to 'negotiating' the future of Kah Tai and will instead 'ascertain' the boundary and forward their recommendation to the National Park Service.

The letters of support were posted online at RCO as public documents in one pdf. The pdf is available at this RCO link. Note that it is a large document because of one 40+page submission of promotional materials supporting the first of many possible losses of park land if the Port is allowed to commercially develop its Kah Tai land. If you would like to receive a smaller pdf with the 5+ MB of promotional materials removed, please email to let us know.

Illegal Conversions of LWCF Parks

If you care about protecting Kah Tai Lagoon Nature Park from the current attempt by the Port to have the fill land, included in the Park in 1981, now removed from any protections, this article is well worth reading. Our State Recreation and Conservation Office has been careless with oversight in the past and illegal conversions are numerous in the region. Citizens must pay attention to this issue to safeguard this remaining natural habitat in our urban environment. Follow the URL at the bottom of this post and you will be able to download a pdf of this important article.

[82WashLRev0737] Ain't Nothing Like the Real Thing: Enforcing Land Use Restrictions on Land and Water Conservation Fund Parks

Gelardi, Michael J.; Washington Law Review

Abstract: Congress created the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) in 1965 to provide resources for states and federal agencies to acquire and develop land for public outdoor recreation. Over the past forty years, the LWCF has quietly become one of the most successful conservation programs in United States history. The federal government and states have used the LWCF to preserve unique landscapes for their natural beauty, scientific value, and wildlife habitat, as well as to encourage traditional recreational pursuits. The LWCF Act prohibits the conversion of LWCF-funded state and local parks to uses other than public outdoor recreation unless approved by the National Park Service under strict conditions. Nevertheless, state and local LWCF grantees have illegally converted numerous LWCF parks. As pressure grows on state and local governments to develop parkland for nonrecreational uses, illegal LWCF park conversions threaten unique landscapes and the integrity of the LWCF program. This Comment argues that federal common law and statutory rights in LWCF-funded lands enable the United States to seek an array of coercive remedies to prevent, remedy, and deter illegal conversions of LWCF parks.

http://hdl.handle.net/1773.1/211

Kah Tai Lagoon Nature Park Plan, July 1982

Here is the architectural plan view in color from Illahee Associates (click on the map to enlarge it). It represents the vision and intent of the full and realized Park as a part of the planning for the development grant in 1983. Although it's hard to see on the right hand margin in this version, a less beautiful version of the same map shows the start date for this rendering as 28 July 1982. For people who are keeping track, notice that July 1982 is BEFORE the Port signed the lease with the City on 4 August 1982 for 20+ acres between Sims and the lagoon. So, in July 1982, with no leases in place for the southern portion of the Park, both sponsors of the 1981 acquisition grant understood that the development grant would - develop (!) the southern portion as a nature park - with a small lagoon, trails, plantings of native flora, a play meadow, restrooms, picnic shelter. Citizens committed $145,000 (in 1983 dollars) as in-kind match for this grant, in skilled labor and materials to develop the vision of the Park.

This was not a vision for a temporary park. This was effort dedicated to a park that had been promised to the citizens of Port Townsend in perpetuity. 'Perpetuity' is longer than 30 years. Kah Tai Lagoon Nature Park should outlast all of us working now to complete the protections that were overlooked by NPS in 1985 when the acquisition grant closed. Protecting Kah Tai is our commitment to those whose vision created it, and it is our gift to the generations that follow.