Whatcom County will get no federal funding for farmland preservation in '09

JARED PABEN - THE BELLINGHAM HERALD

E-Mail

Print Reprint

Text Size:

tool goes here

Over the past seven years, Whatcom County has received $2.06 million in federal money to help buy up the rights to develop homes, protecting land for agriculture.

It got nothing this year.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture changed criteria for determining who gets money to help buy development rights, and under the new criteria Whatcom County's applications received no funding.

But a USDA official said there may be hope for Whatcom County for the 2010 fiscal year.

"It was very sad to see it go to this, but I am very optimistic about next year being a better evaluation," said Jeffrey Harlow, a USDA program liaison for Western Washington. "We will definitely take a look at the ranking criteria for 2010. So it's not all lost."

Whatcom County used the federal money and matched it dollar for dollar with local property tax revenues to buy the development rights. While there's not nearly enough money to protect all of the land for farming that should be protected, the program, called the Purchase of Development Rights Program, has helped, county planner Dean Martin said.

Since the program made its first purchase seven years ago, the county has spent roughly $4.3 million, which includes land costs, appraisals, closing costs and fees to Whatcom Land Trust, which monitors the properties' easements. With the program, the county has prevented construction of 84 homes on 641 acres.

The USDA rewrote rules concerning the scoring criteria for grants, after Congress rewrote the statute in the 2008 Farm Bill, Harlow said. It was changed because purchases were being made nationwide that didn't meet the intent of the law.

But those new rules are not well-suited to Whatcom County and make it hard to win grants, according to a letter from David Stalheim, the county's planning director, to the USDA. The county unsuccessfully submitted applications for five farms for 2009 funding.

One problem is the criteria relies on federal agricultural census data from 2008, data that county government thinks is wrong. After correcting a major error in the data, it showed Whatcom County lost 19 percent of its farmland between 2002 and 2007, which hurt chances for funding. County officials still don't think the number is right.

"No one familiar with agriculture in Whatcom County believes that we lost that much land from farming," Stalheim wrote.

The number is probably closer to 10 percent, Martin said.

Another problem is the criteria states that land under consideration for a purchase must have at least 250 acres of already-protected land within a mile of it, Stalheim wrote. But Whatcom County has very few large farms. Instead it has many small dairies and farms producing high-value crops. In 2007, the dollar value of county ag products was the highest west of the Cascades in Washington and in the top 5 percent for U.S. ag counties.

"Washington, and especially Whatcom County, are not the same as Iowa, Kansas and those places," Martin said.

Harlow said while staff can't bend rules to favor Whatcom County over other Washington counties, they can try to help the entire state win money in future years.

"I think there is some opportunity, some flexibility to some degree, in adjusting how we rank the applicants," he said. "For '09 it's a done deal, but for '10 we're certainly going to take a look at it."

FARMS UNDER CONSIDERATION

County planners are looking at several properties where they'd like to buy development rights to protect land for farming.

The federal government didn't provide money to help this year, meaning the County Council now will have to decide how much local property tax money to spend on rights.

Following are the farms under consideration in this round of development rights purchases:

Matt and Robyn Eldridge property

• Organic dairy farm.

• 31 acres located east of Nooksack and north of South Pass Road.

• 5 total development rights (homes that could be built).

• This purchase has received a $104,310 grant from the state.

Perry Family Farm

• Grass and corn silage, hay.

• 78 acres north of Ten Mile Creek between West Hemmi and King Tut roads. • 2 development rights.

Dean and Heather Tjoelker

• grass and corn sileage, heifers.

• 115 acres north of Burk Road between Markworth and Sunrise roads.