This donation boosts effort to preserve forests around Lake Whatcom
About 62 acres of forest on the southern side of Lookout Mountain in the Lake Whatcom watershed are being protected from development through a Seattle couple’s donation.
Bellingham City Council members unanimously accepted the gift from Neal and Ann Koblitz on Monday, Jan. 11, and allocated about $22,000 in administrative fees required to complete related paperwork.
“It’s a nice complement to existing parcels that we already own,” said Renee LaCroix, assistant public works director.
It includes some 60 acres west of the intersection of Lake Whatcom Boulevard and South Bay Drive and four adjacent parcels in the Glenhaven Lakes Homeowners Association.o
Value of the site was around $94,000, said Riley Grant, spokeswoman for the Public works Department.
In September 2020 the city paid $1.8 million for 125 acres of land on the north side of the lake.
Lake Whatcom is the source of drinking water for 100,000 people, and Bellingham officials have made a priority of acquiring land to prevent further development in its watershed.
Since 2001, the city has bought some 2,229 acres at a cost of $33.7 million and protected an additional 164 acres of land, LaCroix told The Bellingham Herald in September 2020.
Grant said in an email that Bellingham and Whatcom County together have protected about 12,000 acres, or about a third of land in the watershed.
Whatcom Land Trust also has conservation easements near the lake, and the city has a few hundred acres of recreational easements on Galbraith Mountain, she said.
“We are happy to help with this endeavor,” the Koblitzes said in a letter to the city.
Whatcom Land Trust will manage the property, which is part of 440 total acres that the Koblitzes own in Whatcom County.
Their other properties, located in the Mount Baker foothills, will become “demonstration forests” managed by the nonprofit Northwest Natural Resource Group.
Bellingham will own the larger tract and the homeowners association will own the land in its jurisdiction, but it will be protected from development.
