WASHINGTON STATE PARKS and RECREATION COMMISSION Item E-4: Riverside State Park – Classification and Management Planning
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Don Hoch Director STATE OF WASHINGTON WASHINGTON STATE PARKS AND RECREATION COMMISSION 1111 Israel Road S.W. • P.O. Box 42650 • Olympia, WA 98504-2650 • (360) 902-8500 TDD Telecommunications Device for the Deaf: 800-833-6388 www.parks.state.wa.us May 17, 2018 Item E-4: Riverside State Park – Classification and Management Planning Project - Report EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: This item reports to the Washington State Parks and Recreation Commission on updated land classifications, long-term boundary, and management plan for Riverside State Park. This item advances the Commission’s strategic goal: “Develop amenities and acquire lands that advance transformation” and “Provide recreation, cultural, and interpretive opportunities people will want.” SIGNIFICANT BACKGROUND INFORMATION: For the past year, staff has conducted a public planning process for Riverside State Park as part of the Agency’s Classification and Management Planning (CAMP) project. The purpose of this report is to acquaint the Commission with information gathered, issues raised, and preliminary staff recommendations. Appendices 1- 8 provide detailed information regarding the current CAMP planning effort for Riverside State Park. Original CAMP Planning Process When the current land classification system was first established by the Commission in 1995, a long-term effort was undertaken to classify lands and prepare management plans for each park in the system. By 1998, this effort resulted in a public process at Riverside that: 1) Oriented citizens to the park and the planning process; 2) Identified natural, cultural, and recreation management issues, and; 3) Developed management approaches designed to address these issues. Riverside continues to evolve and its land classifications, long-term boundary, and park management plan require updating to address changing circumstances. Today, State Parks manages 9,432 acres within the existing Riverside State Park long-term boundary. These holdings include: • 7, 617 acres owned by State Parks • 1,686 acres owned by Spokane County • 129 acres owned by the Washington Department of Natural Resources (DNR). 1 Current CAMP Planning Process Following Commission adoption of land classifications and long-term park boundary in 1998, staff entered into management agreements with Avista Corporation and the Department of Natural Resources for a series of properties on Lake Spokane. These lands, along with the Commission-owned Fisk Property, were not evaluated within the scope of the original CAMP process nor have they been formally included in the long-term boundary for Riverside State Park. As part of the current planning effort, staff is evaluating approximately 2,251 acres to potentially recommend for inclusion in the Riverside long-term boundary. These include: On Lake Spokane: • 621 acres Knights Lake (DNR owned) • 680 acres Fisk property (State Parks owned) • 92 acres Lake Spokane Campground (DNR owned) • 400 acres McLellan Conservation Area (Spokane County owned) • 2 acre disposal to Nine Mile Falls School District (State Parks owned) On the Little Spokane River: • 108 acres Waikiki Springs (Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife owned) • 199 acres private lands between Waikiki Springs and Riverside State Park West of the Spokane River: • 98 acres (lands that connect Riverside with Palisades Park) • 51 acres (Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway right of way to link Riverside with the Airway Heights area) The original Riverside CAMP remains mostly relevant. As a result, the current CAMP will augment rather than replace the original plan—building on the operational direction already established for Riverside. Next Steps Next steps will include presenting preliminary staff recommendations included in this item to the Commission at its May 17, 2018 meeting in Spokane. This information will also be presented at public meetings scheduled during the week of May 14, 2018. Staff then anticipates incorporating input into final recommended updates to the long-term boundary and land classifications for Riverside State Park for consideration by the Commission at its July 2018 meeting in Vancouver, Washington. 2 SUPPORTING INFORMATION: Appendix 1: Riverside Classification and Management Plan 2018 Appendix 2: Riverside State Park Area Description Appendix 3: State Parks Land Classification System Appendix 4: Overall Map of Riverside Appendix 5: Southern area of Riverside Appendix 6: Lake Spokane area Appendix 7: Little Spokane area Appendix 8: Sontag Park Land Transfer and Property Disposal Author(s)/Contact: Michael Hankinson, Parks Planner [email protected] (360) 902-8671 Reviewer(s): Jessica Logan, SEPA REVIEW: Pursuant to WAC197-11-704 and WAC 352-11-055(2)(c), staff has determined that this Commission agenda item is a report and therefore is not subject to State Environmental Policy Act (SEPA) review. Chris Leeper, Fiscal Impact Statement: Report only, no fiscal impact at this time. Michael Young, Assistant Attorney General: April 23, 2018 Peter Herzog, Assistant Director Approved for Transmittal to Commission _______________________________ Donald Hoch, Director 3 1 APPENDIX 1 Riverside State Park Classification and Management Plan – 2018 Update The following report is based on the original CAMP, which served as a starting point for this update. The original document from the late 1990s acknowledged how the relationship between its own plan, other existing plans, and recommended future plans should be seen as “iterative” explaining: As new information is derived from more detailed resource-specific planning, existing plans should be reviewed and modified to reflect changed circumstances. No single plan should be vested with ultimate authority, but rather, the on-going process of creating new plans and revising exiting plans should be seen as forming an increasingly comprehensive base of park operational direction. The purpose of this report is to discuss all the opportunities, what the public thinks about those opportunities, and summarize preliminary staff recommendations. The first portion of this report, however, explains more about the planning process and the contextual issues that must be considered that are specific to Riverside State Park. Figure 1: Map showing acreages of Riverside as established in the 1998 CAMP. 111 4 Figure 2: Existing management area of Riverside State Park, which is today over 12,000 acres, and far greater in size than envisioned in the late 1990s. Natural, Historical, and Cultural Context: Riverside State Park encompasses three primary land areas associated with watercourses including the Spokane River, Lake Spokane, and the Little Spokane River. The park is composed of natural areas that provide important wildlife habitat: illustrate geologic formations related to lave flows and ice age flooding events, and show the natural influences of the Spokane and Little Spokane Rivers, its tributaries, and springs. In terms of governance, Riverside includes property concentrated in Spokane County. In addition, Riverside also includes the management of DNR lands and Avista Corporation recreational lands in both Stevens and Lincoln counties on Lake Spokane. The Spokane River flows westward into eastern Washington out of the northern end of Lake Coeur d’Alene in northern Idaho. The banks of this river and its tributaries have played a significant role in Pacific Northwest history. Native American presence dates thousands of years and the settlement at the confluence of the Spokane and Little Spokane ranged around 10,000 people. The Spokane House trading post built in 1810 by the Northwest Fur Trading Company-a precursor to the Hudson’s Bay Company—was one of the earliest English trading houses in the Northwest. The historic social and economic evolution of the larger region plays out in all its aspects along the banks of the Spokane River, as fur trading yielded to agriculture, which in turn transformed toward combinations of industrial, commercial, residential, military, and recreational uses. 5 Riverside includes a heritage area at the confluence of the Spokane and Little Spokane rivers, which is a land classification that recognizes how this area has been home to the Spokane Tribe of Indians for thousands of years. According to the Spokane Tribe of Indians: A Socioeconomic Profile 2013, their traditional homelands extended along the Spokane River from the present day City of Spokane, east to the Idaho border and west at the confluence of the Spokane and Columbia rivers. The Spokane shared both economic and cultural ties to neighboring groups including the Kalispel to the east, and the Chewelah, to the north. According to Grant et al., 1994, the Spokane lived in autonomous bands that joined together for fishing and trading; however, the majority of their actions were decided at the band level. The Chewelah occupied the Colville Valley, north, and were an offshoot band of the Kalispel that migrated to the Colville Valley and were later absorbed into the Spokane Tribe. In 1934, the first parcel of land of what would eventually become Riverside State Park was transferred from Spokane County to the State Parks. This was followed closely in the next few years by a variety of donations and small park purchases from private and public parties. Much of the land was acquired as delinquent tax parcels, but Washington Water Power (now Avista Corporation) and other public parties provided key parcels. The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) developed a master plan and constructed many facilities in the park including